


A Summer's Lullaby

by meimentomori



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fairies, Fairy AU, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Innocent, M/M, Protectiveness, Pure, Romantic Fluff, Secret Relationship, Secrets, klance, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 83,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meimentomori/pseuds/meimentomori
Summary: Once there was a fairy born not of a baby's laugh but of a victim's final scream.The rumors say he's horrible.The rumors say he's a monster.The rumors Lance doesn't believe.He knows there's more to the story than they let on.One day, he's assigned a new creek to tend to. The map he was holding, the only way he knows how to get home, gets blown away. He thinks he'll be wandering forever.That is, until someone jumps in to lead him home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to one of my closest friends ever, Addi, who wanted a fairy au.  
> I hope this ends up being everything you could've ever asked for in an au like this. <3

A mellow tune swam through out the air, merging with the low hum of the cicadas and rustling of leaves to create a gentle summer’s lullaby. Rippling water highlighted the softness in his voice, while birds accompanied the tune with complimentary notes. It was the only way Lance knew how to pass the time while he worked, as well as it being the one secret connection he had to the world around him. The creek he'd been assigned that day was calm, unlike the ones groups of water fairies crowded around. Those were the bodies of water he usually worked around, stringing dew drops on spider webs aimlessly, while fluttering around in the scorching sun. It was the height of summer then, when fairies worked around the clock to make sure nature looked as lively and vivid as it could. The flower petals, painted in every color from striking magenta to the palest of blues, seemed beyond surreal to Lance.

He'd once asked Allura how they did it, the garden fairies. Where these colors came from and how they kept them there for as long as they had to, without them seeming fake or forced. To him, he believed it was the magic of pixie dust that sealed these paints permanently on their canvases. She told him that, in reality, it was something he could never learn and was impossible to explain other than they loved every plant as if it were a newborn fairy. They would spend evenings saying goodnight to every plant they grew, mornings watering them as they sang upbeat folk songs, and the rest, that's where the secret laid. Holding one of these petals gingerly in his fingertips, he cherished this time he had alone with this breathtaking scenery. 

He couldn't understand why he had been the only one to offer to come up here and check on things. The others hadn't jumped at the chance to lend their talents when Marina and Delta, their group leaders, had offered this to them. They dashed away in a flurry, like a herd of deer fleeing from a pack of wolves, leaving nothing but golden streaks of fairy dust, falling lazily to the Earth, in their wake. Lance had paused for a moment to admire them. He loved watching the grains float to the ground, sometimes catching on some debris here or there, sending it up into the air in its place. Marina had eagerly given him directions, mapping them out on a newly plucked leaf as she explained them to Lance. 

Delta, on the other hand, didn't seem to be too sure about letting him go that easily. Something seemed to bother her as she stared off in the distance, tapping her foot in a tiny puddle. He studied the map for a few moments, realizing that this was a part of their little world he hadn't discovered on his own. It surprised him to learn this, as everyone in all the land knew how notorious Lance was for exploring every crevice of Pixie Hollow. It seemed he'd been in the general area before, by the looks of it. He'd just never ventured into the depths of woods that laid beyond this particular barrier of trees. He waved goodbye to them both, heart racing with excitement. Marina cut off whatever Delta had wanted to tell him, with a hand pressed to her mouth. It had been odd then but being here now, he wondered what the big deal about it was. Every fairy seemed to believe there was something off about this part of the forest. Lance couldn't wrap his mind around the apprehension the others had of coming and Delta had of letting him go. He felt honored he'd been picked to go out there on his own, and that they put their full trust in him to do so. 

It was the most serene place Lance had ever been to, with its babbling brooks and sing song creatures. The dirt beneath his thin shoes felt softer than he was used to, as if it too, was as fragile as the surroundings it existed to provide for. It was secluded from the rest of the excitement that laid behind him. The only voice that could be heard was his. His singing ceased the moment he saw them. Branches, gnarled and jagged, reaching out for him off of trees that looked as if they'd crumble under the lightest touch. The grass here grew thinner, crunching under his toes as he landed on it. The sunlight here was dim, trees blocking out nearly all of the blue of the sky. 

There was just enough light for him to continue on but no guidance to show him where the way home was. He pulled out his map to examine it but an unexpected gust of wind blew it out from his grasp, chilling him to the bone. Was this the way he was supposed to be going? Neither Delta nor Marina had mentioned this when he'd asked them where the creek was, this forest. It neared the boundaries of where their land laid but that didn't deter him. He decided it couldn't hurt to press on deeper, into a place no other fairy had dared to go before. He might even discover something hiding in it. Secret beauty for only his eyes to feast upon.  
He lifted himself up off the ground and continued on, fearless to the horrors that could lay beyond the trees.

\------------------------

If there was one thing any other fairy could tell you about Lance, it would be how his competitiveness overruled every other feeling in his mind. It didn't matter how dangerous the dare or how juvenile. You challenged him and he would beat you. That was how it worked with him but he didn't mean to make it seem like he wanted to be the best.

He just wanted to have fun.

This labelled him as a nuisance to many, if not most, fairy folk but they figured he'd get what he deserved one day. Someone or something would knock him back into his place as one of the greatest water talents of all time, no longer wasting his time trying to comprehend the unknown secrets of their fairy ways. There was something they didn't know about Lance, however. The consequences that came along with being the bravest fairy to ever exist in their neck of the woods didn't phase him. That was the thrill of living, he thought. What was the point in living out your days being the best when you could try something and fail at it? He got into arguments often over his hobby, as they liked to call it, but he always asked them that so they'd leave him to his explorations. 

Lance wasn't like the rest of them. 

He refused to accept that there wasn't any control as to what talent you were drawn to or that, once you selected it, the amount that you did have was destined from day one. He wanted to prove this to others, to give them a say in what they wanted, but he was always cast aside along with these seemingly insane ideas. Other fairies gossiped about him behind his back often. About how reckless he was, how someday he'd dig up something he didn't understand and bring nothing but darkness to their sacred land. He was used to these. He no longer sent glares of daggers in their direction. He smiled at them and moved on, bewildering them with his kindness. 

Once, someone had had the nerve to tell him he was just another Tinkerbell. That, sooner or later, he'd end up accepting his talent and forgetting all about the secrets that laid in deepest corners of their land, incomprehensible to even the smartest of fairies. That was where her story was one he wished he could erase from their memories. She had fallen back into her ways of tinkering, sacrificed her exploration for her friends, or so the story went. She was used as an example by the elders of all fairy kind, to shove the explorers back into the safest way of life they knew. Working towards nothing until the end of their days. Lance hated how little not only they knew of their own world, but what humans seemed to learn. 

There were two common misconceptions whenever people thought about fairies. The first being that Pixie Hollow was the only fairy community every fairy was born into. This couldn't have been further from the truth. There were branches of Pixie Hollow but nobody seemed to know this. Even some of the fairies that lived there themselves had such a look of astonishment in their eyes when they learned of the places beyond their exclusive utopia. Maple Grove was southwest of the motherland, on the edge of the area the world of fairies spanned across, which was rather small, looking at it from a human perspective. 

The second, a theory formed by the intellectuals and storytellers, was that not all fairies were born from a fairies laugh. Lance knew little to none of the latter, only heard rumors about one fairy in particular. A few years ago or so was when it had happened. A piece of dandelion fluff hadn't latched onto a lighter than air giggle of a child so new to this world. This piece had been floating on by when a homicide occurred. Their last desperate plea for help, an ear-splitting scream louder than a banshee's wail, tainted the purity of this particular seedling. Darkness clung to its snow white tufts as it floated throughout the evening air. It was darker than the crime itself once it floated to the platform, where all fairies took their first sight of the world. 

Nobody cheered as he took his form. 

His wings weren't like theirs. Sharp, blunt corners unfurled themselves from behind his back where there should've been soft curves along their edges. There was no shimmer to them, not even a hint of sparkle caught the light. They were harsh and unforgiving, much like the looks aimed in his direction as he stood up, clothed in nothing but the deepest of reds. Some had already flown away in fear of what he may have done but the majority stayed. The fairy had no clue as to what was going on as the crowd around him lashed out in an uproar of insults. They hissed and cursed, banishing him from ever setting foot in their world of light again. It was remembered by many how hateful his final gaze into the crowd had been before he left without sympathy from anyone, eyes reflecting the flames of the ceremonial torches around him. 

Lance had seen fairies shiver at the memory of witnessing his eyes. They all tried to forget but it was impossible to not hold in their deepest fears of what laid beyond their heavenly lives they tried desperately to focus on. There hadn't been one sighting of him since then but there were many theories as to where he'd gone or what had become of him. Some said that night, as he should've done, he ate a few of the poisonous berries that grew on the dark side of the forest, dying before he could live. Others said he'd escaped the human realm, reeking havoc on any soul he came across. It was how that type of fairy continued to exist, according to them. 

The one he liked to believe, the theory he kept secret above all else, was that he was somewhere closer than they wanted to believe, living out his days right under their noses. It seemed plausible to Lance. This fairy's pixie dust didn't glow like the rest of theirs did, nor was it delivered from the heart of the Hollow. The trail he left then was unlike anything even the eldest of fairies had seen. They described it as ashes, dusty and dark, as if what propelled him was the very chaos of the situation he'd been created as a result of. There was suspicion in Lance's mind that it wasn't chaos he fed off of or reeking havoc that kept him going. The lack of argument on his part when he left without a trace made him believe that it could be possible for his energy to come from the shadows. That if they had accepted him and let him live alongside them, his strength would've been sapped away in an instant. 

Either way he would've had to retreat somewhere without light. A place where night seemed endless and warmth was nearly impossible to come across. Where Lance was walking now seemed to be a plausible place for this fairy to be. Goosebumps emerged in a feeble attempt to warm him from the now autumnal temperatures. He ran his hands across his arms while he ventured further into the trees. Cicadas no longer sounded their symphony of noise. Crows cawed out noisy cries, no longer the harmony of songbirds he'd been singing to. Every step he took was cautious and calculated. There had never been a time Lance had wanted to willingly use his wings instead of talking in the world as humans did but he was considering it. He wasn't in a rush to know every detail of his surroundings especially those that could potentially claim his life. The dim glow of his own dust wasn't enough to make up for the vines slightly out of his field of vision. They were eager to latch onto his pants, tearing holes in them.

"Oh come on!" He complained, surveying the damage. Tiny holes created voids in the fabric. A larger one exposed his knee to all the dangers this forest had to offer. He wasn't going to waste his time attempting to patch it up when he could be finding his way home. Lance wanted to leave and he wanted to right then. There were no animals he could signal for help, a trick Hunk had taught him as a safety measure after he told him of his journeys.  
Or so he thought.

A bush a little up head began to rustle. He lifted himself up off the ground and drifted slowly towards it. If it were a squirrel or chipmunk or any creature of that nature, he could click his tongue a certain way and they would be his ticket out of here. When he pulled apart the branches to see what was inside, all he found was a single flame. The longer he stared at it, the less afraid he became of it harming him. Not only was fire the least of his worries right then, the forest burning down might've even saved him quite a bit of trouble. 

There was something off about the way it was burning. Nothing surrounding it succumbed to its rapid flame. Instead it burned in a perfect sphere, radiating a bit of warmth that Lance clung to with his frozen form. Something about it seemed safe to touch. It sounded crazy at first but if the bush around it, as dead as it was, managed to stay perfectly intact while this orb burned freely, who's to say it wasn't some form of magic? He leaned further in, attempting to grasp it with his fingers. It disappeared before he could touch it, leaving him alone in the frozen shadows once more. Sunlight was nonexistent now. A part of him wondered if this was a subsection between the autumn and winter sectors of Maple Grove but he doubted that.

That's when something strange caught Lance's eye.

More of the same orb began to light up behind the bush, forming a path further away than he was willing to venture. He could see where the vines crawled out from the earth, where every jagged rock sat or pointed branch laid. It seemed to be his only option, the safest one at least, yet he hesitated. Something about trusting strange fiery orbs without a second thought seemed to be almost as dangerous as getting lost out in these woods in the first place. Something inside of him wanted to trust them instead of stand there and contemplate his next move. They were harmless as far as he could tell but it wasn't normal for magic to appear out of nowhere, let alone, in a place like this. A question crossed his mind that seemed to be the most likely answer to where they had come from. 

Could this be the place that fairy had escaped to, those few years ago? 

He was tempted to call out to him, to try and make amends for what the others had done, but then he remembered. Nobody knew his name. They hadn't given him one when they talked about him, the fairies. The rumors were the rumors, no labels attached. If it was him, he figured the best act of respect he could give to him was to follow the path he'd laid out for him. He let his feet touch the ground again, now that he could see where he was going. As the light burned in its subtle orange glow, an odd feeling of serenity settled over Lance. The longer they burned, the more goosebumps disappeared from his arms. It reminded him of the changing of seasons ceremonies that he shut himself inside during, lighting himself a fire to make things less lonely. There was a coziness he'd always associated with flames. It seemed strange, being a water fairy and all, how drawn he was to them. How easily they could burn out might've been why he loved them so much. However long they burned for, they burned with all their might. They only wavered once they burnt everything around them they could. They wouldn't stop until there was nothing left. No bit of flammable matter to discover. 

"You'll have to hurry." Lance jumped at the sound of this mysterious voice. He wasn't alone after all. "I'm not certain how long these can hold."

"So they are magic!" He obeyed and sped up his pace a bit. Every time one faded, another appeared in the distance to replace it. He bet that was how this fairy conserved his magic. Had it been awhile since he'd had to use it or had he ever used it to begin with? "I knew it!"

"You one of those tinker fairies or something?"

The voice sounded accusatory, with valid reason to be. If he was indeed a tinker fairy, Lance thought, it'd make sense for his trust in him to waver. Not that they had established a sense of trust to begin with. He shook his head. There was no time to hesitate when talking to him. He would earn his trust, or at least a part of it, right then and there. It wasn't fair that he'd spent these past few years out here with nobody to talk to. He wondered if he heard their celebrations as the seasons changed during the different times of the year. The fairy theater and its audience, erupting in laughter, during the night of their summer celebration. The delicate harp and flute melodies, enveloping the crowds in a sense of calm, during the spring festival. The crackling of fire as they burned all of the items they no longer needed, letting go of the warmer parts of the year to make way for chillier times during their autumn clean out ceremony. The joyous songs they belted out, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, at everybody's favorite time of the year, Wingsmas. It was a play on what they celebrated in the human world, or so Lance had been told. Something else occurred to him, a much sadder thought, as he drifted further along the path. Had he traveled up the way Lance had come, to sneak peeks of the fun he would never take part in or the friends he'd never meet? He didn't want to accept that. He wanted to believe that he was there for it all. Laughing and singing and living. That was the hardest thing for Lance to comprehend about what shunning this fairy for no reason other than how he'd come to be.

He didn't know what living even meant.

"Are you?"

"Huh?" He was snapped out of his thoughts by that voice again. It wasn't as deep as he'd expected it to be but everyone made him out to be a demon when he seemed far from it. He'd hesitated. He knew this would be a point against him. He would make it up to him. Somehow. "I'm sorry. I'm not one of those tinker fairies at all. I'm a water one. I was visiting the creek a little down the way, you know the one?"

"You're the one who was singing?" There was something of astonishment in the way that he asked this. It made the corners of Lance's mouth turn up into a little smile. He wondered if the fairy from above could see it. Nobody was ever around when he sang. It wasn't that he was secretive about it or lacked the confidence to sing in front of everybody. It was that they wouldn't let him.

That wasn't the talent he was born to have.

"Yeah." His smile wasn't fading in the least. The more he thought about the wonder in the other fairy's voice, the wider it started to become. He kept it small though, with quite a bit of effort on his part. He didn't want to seem too full of himself to this stranger. "I can hear songs in the sounds of nature. It's like the lyrics are there on the wind. I'm someone who can hear them and recite them out loud."

"Hidden beauty." The moment he said this, Lance knew he wasn't the only one who could hear them. It wasn't a matter of concentrating. You had to be aware of the world around you and cherish it. Then the world would reward you with its secrets, in the form of songs. That's how it felt to him, at least. "That's what I call it."

"I like that." He paused for a moment, wondering if it was too soon to ask what he wanted to know. Nothing of how he felt about the others or anything like that. Lance felt weird not knowing his name. "My name's Lance."

"Nobody knows my name." The boy responded. His words were tainted with a hint of sadness. Lance hated it. He hated that he couldn't do anything about it even more than his actual tone itself. "Promise you'll keep it secret?"

"I do." He knew this sounded unconvincing. Learning someone else's name was one of the bonding moments, the igniting factor to a relationship in any form, that people took for granted. Lance would cherish it. To refer to him using a name rather than a rumor is all he could as for. "A thank you for these little flames."

"It's Keith." He was on the verge of laughter, a nervous one at that. He knew something more than what he was letting on to Lance. Keith loved it and so did Lance. He liked to have fun. "You do know I'm helping you get home, right?"

"I figured." He slowed down his pace. Something about meeting Keith and learning his name, after all the things people had said about him, made Lance that much more aware of how lonely a life he led. Talking to him then disproved a majority of the theories written about him. He was alive. He wasn't messing with people in the human world. He was a fairy with feelings, thoughts, magic. It was a strange magic but that didn't get rid of the fact that he was using it for good. He wanted to help someone he'd never met before, not chase them away into the shadows or cast a curse upon them.

He was the exact opposite of what they had made him out to be.

Keith seemed eager to speak and be heard for once. In the silence, Lance could feel his energy without even knowing where he was. It was an excitable aura that flowed to him too. He had nowhere to be after he'd checked the creek which meant there was no need to rush. This could've been the first conversation he'd ever had with someone else and Lance wasn't eager to take it away from him anytime soon. "Where are you exactly?"

"Hidden." This made the both of them howl with laughter. The monotonousness in which he'd said it struck both of their funny bones. They would make rather nice friends, Lance thought. "I'm a little bit above and behind you. I'd rather you not look. When I get nervous, there's no telling where these fire balls will go."

"You can use them as weapons?"

"If I wanted to." He could tell Keith was shaking his head. Lance couldn't help being curious. It was in his nature. "You're almost home."

It took all the willpower he had to not whine to Keith. He wanted to ask him if they could go ever slower. Lance second guessed this. If he got as nervous as he said he did from someone looking at him, there was no telling what he'd do if they found a place to sit and talk together. It was a real shame to him that he felt the need to stay hidden. It wasn't fair what he'd gone through. Lance couldn't think it enough. His life had begun with judgement when it should've begun with love. Keith hadn't held a conversation with anyone until he'd stumbled into his neck of the woods. They might have never met, had he not been the way he was. He hadn't wanted their time to fly by this fast. Granted, the forest had many openings and he would've found one sooner or later, had Keith not found him, but it didn't change how he felt. It might've been as an act of rebellion against the others, or because he had captivated Lance with his mysterious magic, but there was only one thought that consumed his mind.

He wanted to be Keith's friend.

Sunlight covered Lance's skin once more. They had made it to the entrance. No longer would there be balls of fire to guide him, as much as he wanted there to be. He wanted a reason for them to stay together. He turned around to thank him but was met with empty space. All there was, was a trail of ashes. Lance could've sworn there were embers floating in the mix but it must've been his imagination. He'd never seen anything quite like it. When these particles his the debris, they stayed there. There was no magic to them. He sighed. The flight home from here wasn't that long. That was without him being in a hurry. He lingered at the entrance for a few minutes. He thought about going back in right then but he figured Keith needed some time to himself. He hadn't realized how much talking to another person took out of you, especially when you'd been trapped somewhere alone for the longest time. 

The songbirds greeted him as he flew up into the air, focusing on the humming of cicadas once again. There it was, a summer's lullaby. He started to sing it once more. Something about this time was different when the words passed his tongue. This time, he knew someone else could sing it too. He wasn't alone when it came to the hidden beauty of this world. Someone else saw the way the air rippled through the treetops. Someone else appreciated the way water rippled when someone fell into it. Someone else could hear the secrets of the world.

And he was a secret himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance never thought about the meaning of the words he sang.

It was a hard thing for him to explain, this phenomenon. The closest he’d ever heard anyone come to grasping it was Keith. There was something more to the wind than what was on the surface. A voice, shrouded in nothingness, emerged whenever he cleared his head entirely. He’d be so caught up in the beauty of his surroundings that nature would decide to let him in on the hidden treasures it held. If he chose to listen, that was. What he heard could not compare to anything he had ever heard before. The voice he sang along to was but a whisper, soft and angelic. It was the sound of gentle waves crashing on the shore, raindrops tapping gingerly on the tips of leaves. All the subtle sounds of the world together in harmony. Combined with a melody nature formed delicately around it, it sounded as close to heaven as anything could. It was a breathy lullaby Lance felt he couldn’t do justice, no matter how connected he was to the world. Keith had the tone it would take, he thought. There was something about the way he spoke that captivated him. It reminded him of a roaring fire, the way it seemed to fade into the background without disappearing. It had a snap to it that he liked, a bit of something that made Lance want to hear more. He eagerly awaited the sunrise as he watched the sunset on his way home that night.

He landed on his doorstep as the first star appeared in the sky. He hesitated a moment. There was something strange in the air that he couldn’t place. Lance had been sure to lock up before he left. At least, he thought he had. Looking up in the sky now, there was a stream of smoke coming from his chimney. It smelled as fragrant as a bonfire, woodsy and mellow. The windows were covered with thin curtains. Lance swore he had taken them down ages ago to lend them to Allura, who thought they’d suit her own home perfectly. He never left a fire lit before he left nor did he cover his windows while he was gone. A mixture of fear and curiosity took hold of him. He shoved his face against the glass, trying to make out any shapes in the faint light that shone through. There was nothing. He shoved his key hastily into his back pocket. His pants had been torn to shreds already, what was another hole gonna do to them? He turned the handle and, to his expectation, it opened.

“Lance!”

He had no time to process anything. Hunk and Pidge flew towards him at nearly the speed of light, crushing him in a group hug. He smiled and took comfort in their embrace. The two of them were nearly in tears when he looked at them. His face fell once he saw this. Had he made them worry that much? He thought he had left midday. It was nightfall, that was true. Leaving at three, they should’ve expected this. The creek was on the edge of Maple Grove, after all. It was one of the longer flights he had taken but not long enough to warrant this. Once they pulled away, the two of them noticed the confusion on Lance’s face. They took seats at his small dining table, leaving him standing in the doorway. He shut the door after himself, stepping fully inside. He was exhausted all of a sudden. Tonight wasn’t a night for unexpected visitors. It was a night for him to crawl into bed and contemplate what he should do next. How he would make up an excuse to skip work and visit Keith tomorrow. If that didn’t work, how long he would have to wait for the opportunity to see him again. To think about Keith being alone for as long as he had been, then for his first chance at a friend to disappear from right underneath of his nose. To say Lance was worried about him was an understatement.

He regretted not sneaking him home that very evening.

“Do you have any idea how long you’ve been gone?” Allura was sitting on his bed, crossing her arms. She was as close to a mom as any fairy could get. Her look wasn’t amused in the slightest, much like one. “We were supposed to meet at the theater nearly two hours ago! Remember?”

“I thought I told you I had work?” Lance remembered dropping off a note in her mailbox that morning. It had been a small one, scrawled on a spare piece of paper he had lying around, but he had made sure it would stay inside. It had been an oddly breezy day so it wouldn’t surprise him if it had flown away when she had collected her other mail that morning. “Didn’t you get my note?”

She shook her head. The look on her face became disappointed, to say the least. Sometimes her protectiveness was too much. That’s why he had put the note in there. If there was one person Lance didn’t want to get worried, it was Allura. Once, a few months ago, he had been late to meet up at the bakery by five minutes. She asked everyone in there if they had seen him until he flew in and got a lecture in front of them all. It embarrassed him but there was nothing he could to, other than let her. She never settled for anything less when it came to her friends’ safety. That was one of the reasons he’d liked her when they first met, aside from her being anything but ordinary when it came to beauty. She hadn’t felt the same and he let go of the hope that they could be together. He would still flirt with her as a joke from time to time. That was how their friendship worked.

He tried to figure out what time it was. The play the were supposed to see began at six. That made it eight o’clock now. This came was a shock to Lance. He had no clue how time had gone by that fast. He barely had the chance to talk to Keith. All he learned about him was his name, that he possessed and odd kind of magic, that he was kind, and that he heard the voice Lance sang along to. It was a small but cherished conversation. A few secrets they shared, in time that left them with no warning. An apology wouldn’t cut this one from the looks of it. All three of them shared a glance with each other from across the room. They nodded in unison. Something was off with the way they were acting. Uneasiness replaced content as he wondered what he was in for. Pidge looked Lance dead in the eyes, increasing his anxiety of the situation.

“Why were you gone so long exactly?” Her glasses glinted in the light. Lance thought they made her look terrifying, for someone as small as she was. “Find anything interesting around that creek?”

“Who told you I was going to the creek?” He took a seat on the ground by the fireplace. Warmth enveloped him, Lance shivering from the abruptness of it. Summer nights weren’t exactly freezing but temperatures did drop enough to make it somewhat chilly outside. The crackling of embers eased his nerves, helping him regain his confidence. He wasn’t going to give into them that easily. “The note I left Allura told her work was going to run later than normal. I didn’t find out about the creek until around three.”

He paused a moment before he continued. He couldn’t let on to where he had been. “The flowers around it were beautiful. Seems like the garden talents are working hard this year.”

He winked at Allura, who turned away from Lance. He could tell now wasn’t the time for anything but the matter at hand. The whole group of them meant business, from the looks of it. He wondered if Coran had sent them here. He was in charge of all types of fairy talents, making sure they were safe and sound at every moment. It was their fairy police, in a way. He would fix disagreements and things of that nature. It was rare for a fairy to go missing, amongst other criminal activities that were common in the human realm, from what they understood. If he had been gone well into tomorrow, Lance would’ve understood this ambush of visitors. He had come back. He was safe. There were a few scratches from those thorns here and there but nothing major. His pants were torn and he might have looked a mess but there was no arguing that nothing awful had happened to him. It was normal for every fairy to look this rundown after a day of work. Their jobs weren’t easy. They took a lot of energy and effort to complete but they kept nature the way it was supposed to be. Serene and pristine.

He looked around and saw how excited they had been for tonight. All of them had bothered to get dressed up for the occasion. Allura wore her cloudy white hair up, adorning it with marigolds to match her dress. Pidge looked as if Allura had dressed her too, for she sat in a flowing leaf day dress, with slippers and a little gear hair clip to top it off. Even Hunk, who had a small wardrobe from what Lance could gather, was wearing a rather nice faded yellow shirt and some brown pants. He couldn’t help but feel guilty the longer the silence wore on. They had been looking forward to this night for some time. It had been planned nearly a month in advance, on one of the rare days that worked out for them. It was hard for all three of them to find the time to spend with each other. Being a group of friends with four different talents among them, schedules clashed often. When someone had to cancel it for work, they expected it. What they didn’t expect was for one of them to abandon these plans with no warning. He could admit, it was dumb of him to shove a note in her mailbox but he had been in a rush that morning. The promise of something new never failed to excite Lance. He would sacrifice all the time he could spare to get to an adventure, no matter what it meant in the moment. 

“Let me ask this then.” This time it was Allura who spoke. She stood up from his bed and moved so she towered over him. “By any chance did you lose this map while you were out there?”

She held up the leaf Marina had given him earlier in the day. It dangled over his head, a rip cutting into it near the base. How she’d managed to find it, he couldn’t understand. The gust it had flown on was unlike any other he’d felt. It changed the whole atmosphere around him, from peaceful serenity to something of a nightmare. A nightmare Lance had challenged, and turned into a living daydream. He couldn’t lie to her. Knowing Allura, she’d probably already confirmed that it was the map they’d given him. So he decided to do the second best thing, avoid the topic of what he’d stumbled across.

“Yes.” He said this with no hesitation, so that she would be unable to pick a weak point for her next attack. “That’s why I got back this late. How was I supposed to know where the way out was in a forest like that?”

“Didn’t they send you to the creek?” Hunk chimed in this time. Unlike the other two, he was nervous. While they looked Lance dead in the eyes, he picked at his nails, refusing to take even one glance at him.“Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know. Allura, can’t you just tell him?”

“Tell me what?” 

So Coran hadn’t sent them there, Lance thought. There was no way they could’ve known about Keith, other than what the rumors had told them. So why were they being this secretive about it? It wasn’t like they knew him before Lance had. Nobody knew Keith the way he did. To them he was a monster, something born of an unspeakable crime. To Lance, he had a heart. He felt emotions. He listened to the world in a way only the two of them could. He was a part of that hidden beauty.

He was a secret Lance would keep to his grave, if it came to that. 

Allura shot a look at Hunk, who immediately apologized. By this point, there was no salvaging the obvious fact that loomed over them. They were here because they knew. What, Lance couldn’t tell. He doubted one of them would’ve dared to spy on him. Nobody had visited there in years. It made sense to him. Stay away, and they’d be safe. Venture out, and there was a risk they’d bump into the beast. Lance looked up at her, crossing his arms. Allura gave in, taking a seat in front of him. She sighed. She shared a lost for words glance with Pidge, who shrugged in response. Lance had grown impatient by that point. He could’ve been asleep by then, dreaming of the day to come. 

“Lance.” She started, pausing for a moment, struggling to find the proper words to start this lecture off. “There are things you don’t quite understand yet. Secrets to our little world that we’ve sheltered you from. Granted, I’m sure you’ve heard rumors here and there, but you don’t know the full story.”

“You mean about that fairy?” If he played innocent, he wouldn’t have to confess, Lance figured. He could lie well when something this big was at stake. “All I know is that he was banished from Maple Grove and that he was born of a victim’s final scream. It was unheard of up until he came along, right?”

“Yes and no.” She said.

“What do you mean?” Lance asked, jaw open in shock. Keith hadn’t been the only fairy like himself?

“Long ago,” She began, readjusting herself on the floor. “I’d say about five years before the fairy you know of, there was another one. He had been violent, raging against anybody who approached him. They managed to drive him away, into the woods near where you went. The way the others beat him, it was an unspeakable act on our part.”

“He wasn’t safe.” She nearly had to stop. Her face was turning red from anger, voice shaking as she tried to contain it. “That’s what they said. Would you exactly sit there and surrender if somebody started attacking you? Of course you wouldn’t. You would fight for what you were meant to have.”

“Freedom.” Lance whispered. Allura went wide eyed with the way he said it. There was something in his voice that hinted at something more. It was unfairness. It was longing. It was something she had never heard from him and it bothered her. 

“That’s why we were wondering if you found him.” She paused. “Or if you found the younger one. Either of them are dangerous, Lance. They don’t know you don’t mean them any harm. We’re just trying to keep you safe.”

“I didn’t find anybody while I was there.”

“Are you sure?” It was Pidge this time, eyeing him up from behind.

“Yes I’m sure!” He stood up, throwing his hands up in frustration. “Even if I did, what would it matter? All fairies want to do is protect nature, to keep the beauty we fought so hard for thriving. I’m sure they’d want the same thing! Only because they were different, did you stand back and watch. If it’d been me out there, a normal fairy against unspeakable rage, you would’ve saved me. All because I was born from a baby’s laugh. It doesn’t matter how we’re born. We’re fairies. We have to help one another.”

He had to catch his breath before he could say what he had been hinting at.

“We can’t divide ourselves when our home’s on the verge of collapsing.”

The room fell silent. The only sound to be heard was the distant hooting of owls in the dark. They all knew he was right. In the past year alone, they’d had to work harder than ever. It was more labor than Allura, the eldest of the four of them, could remember. There were days where she slept in the afternoon, shutting her house up for the night. He knew this only because he’d stopped by a few times to give her a few cookies Delta had given him, who’d bought them at their favorite bakery. Hunk had been a wreck. The times Lance saw him heading home for the day, he looked like he crawled out of hell itself. Dirt caked his body in a prison, crumbling the more his wings battered against himself. Pidge was tinkering away in her nook, trying to forge contraptions that could multiply the tiny amounts of dust they shed when they flew. She nearly drove herself mad with desire to make these inventions work. They rarely got communications from Pixie Hollow. Dust deliveries were dwindling to the bare minimum they could spare. His friends, his coworkers, everyone he met had to put on a fake smile and pretend everything was alright. That the home that one brought nothing but light was descending into darkness. Why, Lance couldn’t tell. All he knew was something was about to change for the worse.

And it would hit when they least expected it.

“It’s not like them to not tell you what’s going on.” Allura gazed into the fire. “All I can say is this. Our sector is safe. We’ve driven out the mistakes and kept the greatest strong. There’s nothing we should have to worry about, unless those fairies plot against us.”

“They’re fairies too, you know.” Lance nearly growled this to her. “I’m sure they feel the same as us. Nobody ever gave them the chance to be nice. They attacked them without warning. If they’ve stayed away this long, I doubt we have anything to worry about.”

“Are you alright Lance?” Hunk’s voice was less nervous than before, more loving. 

“Just tired.” He glared at Allura. “And I’d appreciate it if you all left me to sleep.”

“We’re sorry for intruding.” Hunk and Pidge said goodbye, but Allura stayed back. “I’m sorry we can’t understand your thoughts.”

Lance said nothing. He watched as she removed the curtains from their rods, folding them so they would fit into the bag she brought. She lingered in the doorway. It was as if she wanted to tell him something but couldn’t bring herself to. He wasn’t sorry for what he had said and he wasn’t planning on apologizing for any of it. Fairies like them were the reason Maple Grove was the way it was becoming. They couldn’t accept the differences of others enough. Being confined into their talents was slowly driving out the joy that had once come with it. He wondered when she became so serious. If it was to protect him or if there was something more she wasn't letting on to. Allura was allowed to have her secrets, as Lance was his. The difference between them was that one always tried to pry them out while the other asked not a single question. She left after a few moments, shutting the door behind her. Lance got up and locked it. He thought about putting out the fire. It was too cold, he thought. It would be fine to leave it overnight. He checked to make sure there was nothing flammable around it, then crawled into his bed, which smelled faintly of roses from Allura. He almost couldn’t rest. He nearly counted the moments until tomorrow’s sunrise. There was a little smile on his lips as he drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow, Lance would teach Keith what it meant to have a friend.

The thought of that made his smile grow slightly bigger.


	3. Chapter 3

Lance woke up to the sound of knocking at his door.

At first it sounded like a squirrel. They’d been known to pad at his door some mornings, begging for something Lance couldn’t give them. He’d been known to domesticate them on accident from time to time. After a few minutes, it grew louder. He thought for a second somebody was trying to break in. That was when he saw Delta’s face, peering through the window. Her eyes lit up once she saw him stirring in bed. Her normally tidy black hair was flying in strands all over the place, dampened from the morning’s dew work. That was one thing he could never understand about her. While Lance longed for adventure, Delta longed for work. Day in and day out, it never changed. She got there the earliest and stayed there the latest. It was a wonder to him when she went to sleep, if at all.

Lance knew he couldn’t keep her waiting any longer. He threw the covers off of himself, keeping a close eye on where they landed. The fire had burned itself out but he couldn’t be too careful. The burn marks from last time were as vibrant as ever in the wood. Where others would fear fire from there on, he welcomed it. He was drawn to it. He figured that was why he liked Keith. Someone who could wield flames at his will. Someone who could use something fairies had feared for generations with the flick of his fingertips. He wanted to know what else he could do. How far his power could be stretched. It was a magic Lance adored, despite him being the least compatible talent with it next to frost. He threw on something more presentable. A sleeping robe given to him by Hunk. He’d sewn the whole thing himself. Blue and gold, with Lance’s name stitched throughout. He cherished it every moment he wore it.

Delta beamed at him once the door opened. Her hair was drier now. He didn’t know how long she’d been standing out there but he apologized anyway. She waved it off. 

“I’m just glad you’re awake!” She let her wings fall still, feet landing softly on his doorstep. “It’s not like you to sleep in like that!”

“What do you mean?”

“You have no idea what time it is?” She motioned to the sky above her. The sun was nearly center in the sky, leaning more towards sunset. “It’s noon!”

“You’re kidding!” Panic overwhelmed his mind, clouding his thoughts. He had planned to be in the forest earlier, so that it’d be easier for him to be unnoticed. He would have to make up some story as to where he was going that day. “Excuse me!”

He closed the door on her face, rushing back inside to change into something else. A bit of guilt plagued his chest, knowing well how honest Delta was. He wouldn’t give into it, though. Nothing would change how tight his lips were sealed. Not with Keith on the line. Today he would see him. They would look each other in the eyes and he’d meet a person, instead of imagining one from a voice. He would get him to smile, one that nobody else had seen before. He would try to learn every little detail about Keith. He knew it. 

Rustling around his closet, Lance managed to come up with an outfit. He found his usual shirt, made from dyed leaves, that had blue sleeves, while the rest of it was white. With a pair of pants, ones without holes in them, worn down sneakers from Pidge, and his jacket he’d been given when he arrived, he was ready. It was time to see Keith. He thought about what he’d tell Delta for a moment before opening the door. He had to say something convincing to her. Something that she would believe or that seemed believable to Lance. He opened it and before she could speak, he began.

“I’m sorry I won’t be able to make it to work today.” He faked a cough. “I’m going to the infirmary. I’m sure it’s a cold but you can never be too safe, right? See you Delta!”

“Lance!” He turned around to look at her. She had circles under her eyes darker than gravestones. “Can you promise me something?”

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t go back to that creek?” The look in her eyes was hopeful. Lance hated lying to her face like this but he had no choice. All the fairies thought that Keith was gone. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he slipped up. He had to be careful, even if it meant spinning a few webs of lies as a means of concealing the truth.

“I promise.” He said, before saying goodbye as he flew up into the air.

It was kind of her to check in on him, Lance thought. Delta was one of the few fairies, aside from his group of friends, that bothered to remember him. She was observant but he didn’t care if she knew that the direction he was heading wasn’t towards the infirmary. He couldn’t be bothered by something as small as that. Today was a day he would remember for years to come. He didn’t want anything to taint his excitement. 

Lance twirled throughout the air, nearly dancing in the sky. Flying that day was something he appreciated. The temperature was perfect even as the sun beat down on him. With the breeze blowing gently against his skin, its rays were pleasant as opposed to being an issue. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, he noticed as he stared above. Lance wished there had been at least a few. When he flew, it was a habit of his to cloud gaze. To stare at them until they formed creatures in his mind, ones of soft cotton. It wasn’t often that fairies did. 

The only time they cared about the sky was when it was raining. 

It was a day off for the ones who worked grueling hours tending to their land. To him, it was a dreamy day with endless silver. He longed each time it did to go out in it. Lance knew well it was to protect his wings but that didn’t make it any easier. Once he had defied his wings and done it. It was the first storm of the summer. Droplets thumped against his skin, rolling down his face in waterfalls. He opened his mouth, tasting the slight bitterness it carried. He took in a deep breath, trying to burn the smell into his memory. He couldn’t describe it to the others when they asked. It was something, Lance felt, you had to experience for yourself. The smell of rain was slightly different to everyone. He thought it smelled sweet, slightly grassy, like the essence of life. He had a tolerance to rain the others didn’t, being a water talent, but it hadn’t been enough. He had to take the next day off to let his wings dry but he had no regrets. 

Nature was something Lance depended greatly on. The creatures he met, the shade of the trees he laid under, down to the tiniest berries growing in the grass. It made him wonder deeper into places others dared not roam. It was something that made him happy when nothing else could. He thought it was natural for fairies to want to depend on it this way for as long as they flew. Nobody else heard the whispers of the land like he did, aside from Keith. Nobody, other than themselves, cared about life the way they did. It was a divide that had kept them from accepting fairies like Keith. Lance never played by their rules. He was glad to be sneaking around like this. He had someone all to himself. Someone who would listen to him when he rambled about the fragility of everything around them. Someone whose smile would only be seen by him soon enough. Someone whose name and voice only he knew. Lance would protect Keith from the others. It was his job, one that he took with great responsibility. Only over his dead body would they take Keith from Lance. It was a challenge with only one thing on the line.

Keith’s life.

\----------------------

Lance landed after around thirty minutes of being up in the air. His wings were tired, drooping more than usual. Under the sunlight, tinges of blue revealed themselves to be woven throughout the delicate swirls that decorated them. They were as unique as the fingerprints of humans, fairy wings. The color they sparkled corresponded to their talent. They weren’t as durable as fingertips, which Lance had to be careful of. While they could carry his weight, his wings, in particular, had been diagnosed weaker than the average. He had them checked out after he stood in the rain that day. They told him that was one of the things that did it. Prolonged exposure to the elements, they called it. He was given simpler tasks at work, ones that required less strain on them. Nobody asked him what had really happened to them. They all complied without hesitation. It bothered Lance a bit but he hadn’t complained. After all, how could he explain his fascination with rain to them? He couldn’t and he wouldn’t even try.

The forest sounded livelier than it had been yesterday. The birds greeted him in twittering unison, bouncing on the branches above. He whistled at them in response. They ruffled their feathers in delight, the birds and him bouncing a tune off of each other. It brought a smile to his face. He had to thank Hunk for that sometime. He was the one who taught him everything he knew about the animals he met. It was one of the reasons Lance’s interest in nature had sparked as fast as it had. They met nearly every day when Lance was newly born, him watching as Hunk tended to the critters that needed help. He was loving, singing lullabies to the babies as he fed them and tending to the tiniest of wounds any of them had. It was why they’d grown so close from the start. Hunk introduced him to the others and the rest was history.

The flowing of the creek soothed the edge off of Lance’s nerves. This part of the forest was secluded but beautiful. Squirrels and chipmunks hopped around. He couldn’t stop himself from taking a moment to lean down towards them, running a finger on their heads. He could take one home and keep it, if he really wanted to. It wasn’t surprising to him that they were so friendly. Practically every animal he came across nearly lept into his arms when he got close to them. Animals were their friends who depended on fairies to keep them fed and safe. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t run away from his work all together. It made Lance happy to make others happy, even if they couldn’t thank him back. That was just how he was.

He paused for a moment while he was flying. Blood trickled inside of his cheek, Lance realizing he had been biting it this whole time. It was a nervous habit of his that drove everyone else up a wall but him. Scratches and scars were natural. Fairies had slower healing times than humans but with all the remedies they’d discovered throughout their years of existence, it wasn’t a problem. Now he had a reason to fly by the infirmary later. There was a cream there that healed these sort of things. Pidge worked there sometimes. Not often but if he bumped into her, it’d be easier to lie. Lying to strangers, Lance was terrible at. Lying to his friends, that was something he could do. It was easier to make it up to someone who you’d see again. You couldn’t change what you said to a stranger. That was why, he figured.

The trees, as dead and menacing as they looked, were a welcome sight for Lance. When he landed in front of them, his heartbeat picked up in pace. How would he even find Keith again? They hadn’t shared more than a few sentences to each other but he would know his voice when he heard it. Unless he didn’t want to speak to him again. That could happen. He couldn’t call out to him with his name. He knew nobody could hear it this deep into the woods but he couldn’t take any chances. Crows cawed out, almost as if to tell him to hurry up and get it over with already. He had to try. He walked through the clearing he’d been through just the day before, bracing himself for disappointment. He would be let down despite this, he knew it but if he could make himself believe it didn’t matter as much as it did, maybe it would make the rejection easier.

“Hello?” He called out. “It’s me, again. Lance? The water talent from yesterday?”

Silence.

“You don’t have to show your face if you don’t want to.” He smiled to himself. “I know your name and voice. That’s enough for me.”

Nothing.

“I bet you’re worried.” He sighed, sitting on the trunk of a tree that had fallen over. It was rotting but stable. “I’m not like them. I don’t want to get you hurt or killed or whatever they’ll do to you. I’m asking because I want to be friends. Friends protect each other, right? That’s something I can promise.”

“Promises are easy to break.”

The suddenness and force in which he said this made Lance jump. It wasn’t often that things scared him but he sounded more intimidating than he had been yesterday. It sounded like it came from around where he’d been yesterday. A little bit behind, and a bit above. It was as if Keith was his guardian and Lance was who he had to protect. It was sweet.

“I know.” He resisted the urge to turn his head. “You don’t have to be nervous.”

“I can’t help it.” Keith’s voice fizzled to a whisper. “You look strange to me.”

“Is that so?” Lance raised an eyebrow. “Would it help if we went to the creek?”

A branch broke behind him, fingertips brushed his own. Lance latched on, pulling Keith along with him as they walked. His hand was cold. Lance squeezed it tighter in his, trying to warm it up. He felt him squeeze back in response. He’d probably never gone out this far before. He spent his days hiding in the shadows of death that loomed beyond, a layer of defense to scare off the curious. Now he got to experience the beauty of nature he sang along with. It wasn’t that the forest he lived in wasn’t beautiful. It was, in its own way. It was that now he would hear something other than the same song he’d listened to for years. It changed each place Lance went, and he assumed the same went for Keith.

“I love it here.” Keith was in awe. The sunlight pouring through the trees was beautiful, illuminating the surface of the water, turning it into a glittering sea of waves. The sweet scent of flowers mixed with the subtle scent of water and grass, Lance listening as Keith took a deep breath in. He let go of his hand. Lance didn’t want him to. “Do you come here often?”

Lance shook his head. There was no place for him to sit here so he knelt by the creek instead, picking up a stone. He tried to skip it across but it sunk right away. Keith giggled. Lance pouted, turning away from him. At least, he thought it was away from him. It was harder, he noticed, to carry a conversation with someone you couldn’t see. Lance couldn’t tell if Keith thought he was being childish, wanted to join in himself, thought it was pathetic how far it’d gone or all three. If his eyes were understanding or harsh. If his lips curled into a smile or pursed in disgust. There were emotions in the air that he couldn’t witness if he stayed in hiding. Faces carried more meaning than the words themselves did. He wanted to ask him if he’d show himself but he didn’t want to press his luck. If he made so much as one wrong move, Lance would lose Keith forever. He couldn’t have that happening.

“I know what you’re thinking.” This made Lance jump again. How many times would Keith make him jump? “You want to see what I look like, don’t you?”

“Maybe.” He poked the ground with a stick. “I’m sure you don’t look like they said.”

“Like a monster?”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them spoke. It was a heavy silence, one of those where you don’t know what to say yet you have to say something. The cicadas droned on, adding to the what seemed to be never ending quiet. Lance used to enjoy this. He used to sit here and listen to the smallest of sounds for hours. It didn’t matter to him if the world revealed itself. They were calming to him. Right then, they weren’t. They made his lungs constrict, limiting the air he could breathe in. He had to bite the bullet and speak. He forced his next words out. It was all he could hope right then that Keith didn’t run off.

“It’s just the two of us.” Lance spun around so he faced the creek, holding his hand out behind him. “Promise?”

“Pinky promise.” Lance felt Keith’s finger wrap around his. It was smaller than he’d expected, for the littlest finger on anyone’s hand. He replied by wrapping his own around Keith’s, silently sealing the deal. “They’re harder to break.”

“Really?” Lance smiled to himself. He tried to imagine what Keith’s smile would look like. If he crinkled his nose, if he had dimples in his cheeks. If his teeth poked out from under his lip as he did. He thought of Keith as a lip biting smiler. Anxious yet endearing. “How would you know that?”

“I’ve only ever shook hands on one promise.” Keith’s feet hit the ground, crunching the leaves beneath them. Lance thought he would be slightly shorter than him. “And it was broken. Have you ever made a promise before?”

“A few times.” He shrugged, dropping his hand to his side. “And I’m breaking one right now.”

“Then how can I trust you?”

“You can’t.” He admitted. “You just have to believe me.”

A hand tapped his shoulder after a few dread filled moments. Lance spun around, having to stop himself from gasping. There, right in front of him, was Keith. It came as more of a shock to him than he realized it would. A part of him thought he was imagining things. That this voice was created as a means to make him feel less alone. To his delight, Keith was real. His wings were as they said, with jagged edges that looked as if they could slice right through him, if he wasn’t careful. Lance wondered how strong they were compared to his. Keith’s hair was longer than he’d expected, a black mullet with bangs nearly long enough to cover his eyes. That was what Lance couldn’t stop staring at. They weren’t quite blue but they weren’t quite purple. They were indigo and sparkled like the night sky. Paired with his nose and half smile, he looked like he was from another universe. A place where the night was a planet of living creatures, born to protect their home with their lives. One of the strongest warriors known to any galaxy. When Lance’s gaze barely moved, Keith spoke.

“Do I look that awful to you?” He looked down at his feet. Red. That must’ve been his favorite color. He was wearing it practically from head to toe. “I can stay behind you if you want.”

“It’s not that.” Lance paused for a moment. “How have you been hiding those beautiful eyes from the world all these years?”

Keith’s face flushed, eyes widening in a mixture of fear and shock. Lance covered his mouth with his hand, realizing how flirty that had sounded. He meant it despite the tone he’d said it in. His eyes were the prettiest pair he’d seen, even more beautiful than Allura’s. Hers were the day and his were the night. 

“Thanks?” Keith’s voice wavered. Great, Lance thought. He made him more nervous than he was before. “I don’t know what to say.”

Without thinking, Lance sat on the creekfront. He patted a spot beside him. Keith sat too, hugging his knees to his chest. He looked at the water the way Lance thought he would, with a look of entrancement and wonder. The ground was slightly damp underneath of him but he wanted to show Keith a bit of his own magic. It was the only thing he could think of to distract the two of them. It would also give Lance the chance to prove to him that he was a water talent. It was a childish fear to have, not being believed, but with Keith, it was justified. He held his hands slightly above the water, imagining it as a small aquarium in the palm of his hand. The way it rippled, the specks of debris floating in it, down to the color of the water itself. The better the imagination a fairy had, the better their magic was. Lance was one of those fairies. He held the orb up to Keith, who tried to touch it. He pulled his finger away just before it touched the surface.

“Go on.” Lance gestured toward it, eagerly awaiting his reaction. “It won’t bite.”

Keith gave him a sideways glance but did as he was told. He was gentle about it. Once he pressed into it, the water rushed around his finger. He pulled it out and pushed it in again. Confusion took a hold of his expression, turning to wonder, then admiration. It was second nature to Lance. All he had to do was focus, to imagine the water as a planet that couldn’t be destroyed, and it complied. That was how magic worked. It wasn’t something you knew on instinct. You had to learn how to control it, to see things in a different light, in a new perspective. It was why the abilities each fairy gained were as unique as they were. Delta envied Lance because of the vast library of abilities he had at his fingertips, her aggravation growing when he said all you had to do was imagine. Everyone wanted to know how to imagine. That was something that was innate. You couldn’t learn how to imagine. Either you dreamt of places far beyond reality or you didn’t. You were a worker or a creator in their world, most of the time. Lance could switch roles whenever he wanted, but he preferred to create. Life was meaningless to him without thinking of the places that could be.

“Can I try and hold it?” 

Keith snapped him out of his thoughts. Lance bit his lip, thinking for a moment. He never tried to let anybody, other than water talents, hold water. He figured it couldn’t hurt. Concentrating as if his life depended on it, he passed it to Keith. For a moment, it held it’s shape. Lance got to see him smile. It looked youthful, like all the new fairies he’d seen come through their neck of the woods. He had no dimples, his nose didn’t crinkle up but it was unique. It made his face light up without it looking forced. Keith was genuine. When the orb burst and splashed all over him, he grinned. 

“Do you like water?” Lance asked, trying to make another orb. Keith stopped him. 

“Yes!” He flew up into the air, twirling around a few times. He’d never seen someone this excited. “That was amazing! I don’t know how you do it! I’ve never been able to see a water talent at work! I’ve been able to sneak around and see a few other talents but never-”

“Wait.” Lance stopped him. He took his place by his side once more. “You’ve been out of the forest?”

“Not often, but I have.” Keith looked up at the sky. There was a clearing, a place void of leaves and branches. There were a few clouds now. Lance thought they looked like a kitten, shying away from prying eyes. “I didn’t know water talents existed until I met you.”

“What talent do you think you are?”

“I’d say fire, but I’m not sure.” Keith looked down at his hands. Lance looked with him. They were calloused but not burned, as he had expected them to be. They could’ve been old burns that healed overtime, until he learned to control the magic he’d been given. “What’s it like living out there?”

“Stressful.” He put his hand in the water, the current pushing against it. “It’s why I’m here with you. We don’t do this. There’s never a time for us to relax. It’s all work. You get sick of it quickly.”

“That sounds awful.” Keith picked up a stone, running his fingers across it. He threw it. It skipped, unlike Lance’s. Keith noticed him looking at him, rolling his eyes.“You held yours at an angle. That’s why it sank.”

“Thanks for the tip.” He tried again, this time being careful to hold it steady. It bounced against the surface, sinking after five or so skips. Lance smiled. “Do you do this often?”

“Not here.” Keith threw another one. It skipped seven times. “There’s a smaller lake in my forest but I like this place better. It’s nice to be in the light once in awhile.”

“I bet.” Lance threw his rock in the air, catching it in his hand every time he did. “I wonder why the others were so quick to hate you. You’re better than they are.”

“If you compliment me anymore, I might melt.” Keith laughed, arching his back. His hands were beside him, clutching onto a rock in his left. He turned and looked Lance in the eyes, concern on his face. “You really hate it that much out there?”

He nodded. Lance didn’t want to go into the details of how he was skipping work right now. He didn’t want to talk about all the technicalities of fairies and what their work schedule looked like. He wanted to know more about the mystery that sat right next to him. He wanted to learn what he liked and what he didn’t. He wanted to know what it was like to have to admire the daily joys of living from afar. Lance wanted to stay in this forest, under the light of the sun, forever. The only reason he went back yesterday and why he’d leave today was to protect Keith. That was the only thing that would get him to do anything. To lie, play his role in the world as it was meant to be yet defy it all together. Lance was an outsider on the inside. Keith longed to be an insider from the outside. He only saw the happier times. He didn’t know the reality of it all and, at the end of the day, Lance couldn’t break it to him. He would only answer questions he asked. There was something about the innocence of him not knowing that he wanted to protect. It was rare, just like him.

“Why did you come back?” Keith broke the silence. “Were you drawn in by my fire or was it something else?”

“While I do love fire probably as much as you love water,” This made him blush. Keith did that a lot, Lance noticed. It made him want to hold his face in his hands and cool them down. He hated making people blush, even if it was out of flattery rather than embarrassment. “That wasn’t why I came back.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because of this.” He gestured to him then back to himself. “I liked talking to you. You’re different than my friends back home. I wanted to be your friend, I guess.”

He looked down before he said the next part, his own face burning with a fire hotter than Keith’s flames.

“I hope that’s okay.”

"Of course it is.” He skipped another rock. Lance wondered if he did that when he was nervous. “If you make a deal with me.”

“Sure.” Lance turned towards him, bringing his own knees to his chest. It was a comfortable way to sit. “Shoot.”

“You bring me something you love from out there every day you come to see me.” When Lance said nothing, he continued. “It can be anything. You can wear something special or bring some food you love. This way, we’ll never run out of things to talk about.”

“Can we start now?” Keith looked a bit surprised, but waited for him to continue. Lance didn’t want to tell him that there was nothing he could bring that could extend the length of the conversations he wanted to have with him. He did remember that there were a few things special about what he’d decided to wear that day, buying him more time for them to spend together. “These sneakers were a gift from my friend, Pidge. She’s a tinker talent. I don’t know how she made them, or where the name came from, but I wear them a lot.”

“Whoa,” He noticed them for the first time, taking a closer look at them. Lance loved the way Keith seemed to examine everything around him, even when he looked at him, himself. It felt like he was trying to burn it into his memory, so he wouldn’t forget any detail he learned about what laid beyond his home. He tapped them, tilting his head before sitting back up. “Those are seriously cool.”

“Aren’t they?”

“Speaking of your friends,” Lance’s stomach dropped, dreading what he knew Keith was going to ask. “Are they nice?”

It pained Lance to hear him ask this. They were nice. There was a bit of niceness in everybody. Even the cruelest, most unforgiving fairies that had ever existed, back in the ages when wars were waging for years on end, had a weakness that made them nice. To a select few, nice applied to everyone. No matter who you were, they were the people who would help you with work. They were the people who stopped rumors before they spread. They were the people like Lance and Keith, the ones who hid from the others who put on a facade of kindness. He had to be honest with him.

“Don’t expect to meet them anytime soon.” He sighed. There was no point in hiding it anymore. “That promise I broke? It was to not come here today. My friends are nice but they’re not accepting. They hate you. It’s not because of you, you know? It’s because of how you were born. I hate it.”

“Well,” He looked as if he wanted to cry but hug Lance at the same time. “At least I found you.”

“Who knows where I’d be if you hadn’t?”

Keith flew up once more, startled. By what, Lance couldn’t tell. All that could be heard were the sounds of nature. There was nobody else out there but the two of them, though he couldn’t tell completely since another fairy could fly and hide in the trees without them noticing. It worried Lance almost as much as it worried Keith. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Was all he said before flying off.

Lance stood up himself, brushing the wet leaves off of his pants that had stuck to them. He started the flight home with no hesitation. He forgot all about stopping at the infirmary. He forgot that Delta would ask him tomorrow where he had been. He forgot everything but the fear that was overtaking him, turning an easy flight into a panicked frenzy. If there had been someone there, Keith would’ve told him, wouldn’t he? If there had been someone there, what did that mean for them? If there had been someone there, would they tell Lance that they knew? Someone else could be in on their little world. A one serene hideaway turned into a scouting spot for a nosy fairy. Whoever they were, Lance wouldn’t forgive them, if there was a person at all. He tried to look in the brighter side of things. The sun was shining as bright as ever, now with many clouds for him to look at. The temperature had risen but just enough so that it stayed comfortable. The bite in his mouth from earlier had stopped bleeding. The one thing Lance cared more about than anything was that Keith wanted to talk to him. They made plans to talk. They were becoming friends.

Nobody would be able to change that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of an update last week! It was Halloween and I was ill as well so it wasn't happening but I hope you guys enjoy this one! <3

Lance regretted every moment that he worked.

It wasn’t due to the lack of adventure, which lay just beyond his fingertips, if he dared to reach out for it. He had, had enough of that, is what he told the others. He longed to be out there but they would catch him and it wasn’t the place he needed to be right then. It wasn’t the work itself, as mundane and robotic it had become. In fact, he was one of the few fairies who took pride in it. It gave him the chance to look at the world around him, while helping it out at the same time. They were the reason the water sparkled the way it did, the reason you could walk out in the morning and feel dewdrops against your toes. Nothing could compare to the work that they did yet he couldn’t help but wish he was somewhere else. His regret, as silly as it may have been, was that he wasn’t able to be with Keith. There were plenty of other fairies he could talk to but none of them fascinated him quite as much as he did. Keith was something Lance couldn’t put his finger on. He wasn’t a talent like the rest of them, he was something more. The power he possessed was unlike anything Lance had seen documented in the history of fairies. It was dangerous but he kept crawling back for more. He figured that was why he wanted to see him again.

Or so he liked to believe.

Lance pressed his hand into his pocket, hand closing around the gem he had stored in there. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was small and easy to lose, if he wasn’t careful. If he dropped it in the lake he worked in, he was done for. No fairy knew how far deep it went down. It seemed endless, like a rabbit hole meant to drown any curious souls. Lance had promised himself that he would remember and he had managed to. It came as a shock to himself, considering he could barely remember how to get to work in the morning, despite it being a mere wing’s flap away from his home. He hoped that Keith would find it as fascinating as he did. It had been a gift from his friend, Elaine, who found it some time ago. When held up to the light, it was clear as day, reflecting a rainbow throughout itself. The only way you could see it, she had told him, was if you held your hand out in front of it. He had spent a few hours doing this alone the day he got it. Allura had to pry it out of his hands so that he would spend time with them. Lance had made sure that morning that it was going to be sunny that day so that Keith could see the magic of its simplicity. 

It made stringing dewdrops go by all the slower. Webs occasionally got stuck in Lance’s hair, earning a few yucks from him here and there. Tending to nature wasn’t a job that didn’t get your hands dirty, which he knew, but the stickiness caused his hair to tangle. Of all the things they had solutions for, Lance thought with a sense of frustration that they should have solved this problem by now. He would have to stay behind and wash them out which he couldn’t spare today. Minutes dragged on for what seemed like hours. The sun was high in the sky, making Lance thankful for a moment that he wasn’t a light fairy. He wondered if they were born with a tolerance for it that others weren’t so that there skin wouldn’t swelter and burn underneath it. He decided to take a break, dipping his feet into the water. The lake’s waves lapped around his ankles. Celeste’s Sea, they called it. Lance found a stone flat enough to skip, aiming it flesh with the horizon of the water. It skipped nine times before falling into the endlessness below. His personal best.

“Slacking off on the job?” Marina’s voice startled Lance, causing him to nearly fall off of the edge and into the water. She caught him by the arm. “You okay, Lance? It’s not like you to be this out of things.”

“What do you mean?” His heart was racing but he could still speak. It made it far more difficult than normal, as his breaths were quicker as well. “I’m always like this.”

“Yeah, right.” She laughed and shook her head, sitting down beside him.

It was easy for any of the others to find Lance, no matter who they were or how well they knew him. This was his serenity, his slice of heaven reserved for when he wanted to be alone. It was an area of the lake along the furthest edge, secluded in trees and greenery. The bushes that surrounded him were covered in luscious berries, ranging in shade from the brightest of reds to the deepest of maroons. They were in great contrast to the leaves, which were such a bright shade of green, you could almost say they were glowing. The rustling of the trees drowned out the whispers of gossip he heard from the others. Water talents, while important, had a habit of running their mouths too much. Many spoke of him, saying how he’d never get anywhere if he continued to slack off like he did. The truth was, he was done for the day. The only reason he stayed was in case they needed him to train the newcomers. 

Despite being one of the youngest fairies around, Lance was one of the most talented of his time. He could manipulate water in ways that even Marina, who was nearly three years older than him, couldn’t. All he had to do was close his eyes and imagine it. What they couldn’t understand was how to feel with their minds. If you shut out everything, the sounds around you, the grass underneath where you sat, there was a place in your mind you could get to. Unlike Delta, Marina had tried. He watched as her brow furrowed and she struggled to comprehend what he was saying. It was a planet that she couldn’t reach, a place only Lance seemed to have been able to escape to in his mind. Looking at Marina now, she looked more at ease than normal. Her amber eyes were transfixed on the ripples in the water as she glided her hand through it. There was almost a sadness to her but a calm one, as if she wanted to fade away into her surroundings, not caring about the others remembering her.  
“I should be the one asking you if you’re alright.” He said finally, breaking the silence.

At first, she said nothing, pupils following the movements of her wrist. Lance wiggled his toes under the water. They were slimy from the algae that grew there, though that wasn’t something they could control. Nature was meant to be unpredictable. They did what they were born to do. Some things were out of their hands. It didn’t bother him much, if at all. It was why everybody kept a closer eye on him than most others. He was fragile yet he longed for danger. It was a combination they feared would lead to his ultimate demise. Lance saw it as a challenge, to push his boundaries until he could take no more. There was nowhere he wouldn’t go, nothing he wouldn’t do, if it meant proving them wrong. There was a point to adventure, to conquer the dangerous.

He wondered if that’s why she was there.

Had he been that obvious? Was she the reason Keith had rushed off yesterday, into the woods without a hint of a warning? Lance looked back over at Marina. She stood up out of the blue, shaking the water off of her wrist. She turned away from him. There was something off putting about it, whether it be the slight shaking to her figure or the suddenness with which she did it. All Lance focused on was the shimmering blue in her wings and the golden streaks in her hair.

“Your friends are here to get you.” She said, still facing away. “You worried them yesterday.”

She paused for a moment, the seconds between leaving Lance in a state of nerves coiling tighter around his chest.

“You worried us all.”

He shrunk smaller into his skin as she flew away, towards the sunlight of his alcove’s exit. He wanted to punch a tree, to yell at her, and to go back to the forest where Keith dwelled, all at the same time. It wasn’t fair. Nothing that the two of them had was much. They had a promise that, if Lance broke, would shatter the relationship they’d built in such a short amount of time. Lance was surrounded by people who forced smiles on their faces, who acted happy despite the repetitive nature they were doomed to live out during their days there. Keith was surrounded by suffocation of a different sort, of a vast forest bustling with death that he had no escape from. Together, they could forget about all of those things, if the other asked questions that didn’t require such answers. It wasn’t a life Lance was about to give up when it had barely begun. No matter what they threw at him, he would keep his lips sealed. There was nothing that would make him break the silence he swore to Keith.

All eyes followed Lance as he made his way to the front, hovering just inches above the ground. He didn’t know what to make of their gazes as he flew past. Some seemed welcoming, a few fairies waving to him as he passed. Most of them seemed to be the opposite, however. They were cold, as unforgiving to him as if he had been born like Keith himself. Some of them turned away but the feeling of their stares remained. They burrowed into the back of his mind, causing him to rush off faster than he intended to. The few that cared seemed to frown a bit, glancing around at the others, wondering what they were missing. They were the young ones, the ones that didn’t know what was going on. He wished silently that they would ignore the stories. That they wouldn’t listen to those who couldn’t understand. It was a small wish but he hoped it came true.

\---------------------

Allura was tapping her foot impatiently when Lance arrived. Pidge and Hunk’s eyes instantly lit up, them having to restrain themselves from crushing him in a hug, as they had done only nights before. Those were his friends, for you, overprotective, each in their own way. The sun was high in the sky now. He was cutting it close, with the sunset gaining on him every minute that passed. He looked at the three of them. Pidge and Hunk were dressed formally, as they had been when he’d missed their plans. Same went for Allura, though this time, there was no softness in the air around her. This wasn’t the overprotectiveness Lance knew her to have. It was something originating from a nature of hatred, a rudeness he had never seen from her before. There was nothing of worry in her eyes. They shut him out. They weren’t the windows to her soul, they were the barriers that kept him away, in that moment.

“What are you all doing here?” He asked, struggling to keep his voice from shaking. He hadn’t expected to be ambushed by them like this. “A party or something?”

“To an extent.” Allura spoke. Her voice sounded with no hint of an emotion. “We heard you were done earlier than normal, so we were wondering if you’d like to join us at the theater?”

“It’s my only day off.” Pidge chimed in, fluttering closer to Lance. She looked up at him, a nervous sort of excitement in her brown eyes. It seemed forced. It could’ve been the sunlight in them but something seemed off. “Work’s been piling up but I managed to push through it for tonight, right Hunk?”

“Right!” He practically jumped out of his skin when she said his name. “The animals are all happy and healthy, for now. You never know what might happen when the seasons change.”

Summer had come in as a rush that year. The work that had piled up from then had flowed over as the end was closing in on them. Autumn was on its way, meaning things would pick up from there. It was the inbetween time when things were a bit easier on them. Lance knew it would be harder to make excuses when the weather changed. Temperature was another factor that affected his wings the most. The colder it was, the deeper the aching in them became. Water talents tended to have an easier workload as it froze, since that was no longer their territory. It was taken over by the frost fairies, turning the water they’d watched over so carefully into a crystallized wonderland. He stayed out sometimes to watch it. The droplets dripping down off of branches as the fairies carefully positioned themselves underneath to freeze them, creating icicles sparklier than the year prior. Their bare feet brushing against the lake’s surface, creating marbled swirls everywhere their bare skin touched. It was hidden beauty so obvious that it took all Lance had in him to not tell them that he, too, could freeze water like them.

It was one of the reasons he hid, come the chilling air blowing throughout their home. He couldn’t remember exactly when he had realized it. It wasn’t something that shocked him at the time when it had happened, because he didn’t know water talents weren’t supposed to be able to freeze water. He thought if they could manipulate it, what was the difference in freezing it? It was still changing the molecules, one being the structure and the other being the shape. Pidge would be able to explain it to Lance, if he bothered to ask. She was smart like that, where she could calculate everything that she did with her talent. There were no calculations, he was learning, in raw magic. It was something everyone had to discover for themselves, and see where their limits laid. Lance’s just happened to be further than any fairy that had existed for generations. If he revealed it, there was no telling what they would do to him. He’d either be worshipped or an outcast. He’d prefer the latter but he couldn’t take a chance. Not in this internal war he was fighting. Himself and his heart against the world. At that moment the world seemed to be winning. There was one way he could sneak away to see Keith. One thing he had against them that would be fool proof, if they respected his privacy.

“Can I go home and change first?” He asked, hands behind his back. He cracked his neck, yawning a bit. A show that earned him pity every single time. “I want to get in a nap if I can. What time is it at?”

“Six.” Pidge and Hunk smiled at each other. Allura didn’t seem so sure. “Are you sure you don’t want to join us beforehand? We were planning on going down to the bakery, my treat.”

“I’m sure.” Lance placed his hand on Pidge’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly for support. That was where he and Keith were two peas in a pod. They had more nerves between the two of them than the queen who watched over the slice of the world all of fairy kind resided in. “I’m still not feeling great from yesterday, so I’d rather not have any sweets right now.”

Allura looked as if she wanted to protest but let him pass. Lance noticed her hands were tucked behind her back. He waved a quick goodbye to them all and rushed off. He caught a glance of her hands before he did, which were balled into fists. There was something up with them all. It stirred uneasiness inside of him which he turned to focus. He knew then this plan had to be flawless if it was going to work. He wasn’t not going to go home. That would make it too obvious. Instead, he took his time on the flight there, to make it look as if he was dawdling like he normally did. The sky seemed to beckon his head upwards. It wasn’t the safest way to fly but the blue of it was something unlike he’d ever seen before. It was pale, as if someone had mixed in the light the sun poured out with the atmosphere. The clouds that day reminded him of birds, chicks specifically. They were small and round, contained in clusters in various places above. He wondered if Keith saw them too, or if he saw something else in the sky right then.

Lance circled around his house a few times, checking to be sure the door was locked, peeking in through the windows to make sure nobody had broken in, Basic things he did every time he returned for the day, minus the returning home bit. He flew away once he knew everything was secure, taking it at a faster pace this time. He didn’t used to care if anybody rummaged through his things. He had nothing to hide, other than a few shirts, in pinks and purples, some with hints of shimmer, that he had bought. His diary, too, but privacy was the one thing fairies respected more than anything, unless their lives were on the line. They believed theirs were, living in a childish fear they couldn’t look past. They believed a story that was spun from the storytellers. The ones whose jobs were to bend the truth, if it meant anybody would listen to them. He sometimes wondered why they called themselves storytellers in the first place. There was no creativity Lance could find in taking the truth and morphing it into a monster. A monster that, once unleashed, could reign more horrors upon the world than the innocent creature it had started out as. They took angels and made them demons. They took love and made it hate.

They took Keith and made him a warning.

That was how things went, wasn’t it? Stories always had some sort of moral to them, whether or not they were fictional or factual, intentional or unrealized. At least, that’s what the people who listened to these stories believed. It was the way they were told that embedded these thoughts into their minds, ones that made Lance shake his head in regret. There was nothing he could do about it but listen and watch as they wasted their lives believing in things that weren’t even true. Lance could never glean a lesson on his own from them, unless someone pointed it out to him. He got lost in the story itself, the words they used, if it was one that interested him. That was why he had ignored the fine details of Keith’s, of the existence of another fairy like him. Tales like that weren’t fun, they were horrid. They were words morphed around a common theme and spit out to make them seem like something when they were really just that. Trying to be something.

The flight seemed faster than Lance had meant it to be. When his feet touched the ground, it seemed like no time had passed at all. He figured it was because of how the sun was lowering itself on the horizon, casting a warm glow over everything. It reminded Lance of an oven, embers from the flames used to propel it burning bright and hot. He had to hurry if he wanted to show Keith the crystal. They hadn’t established an easy way to signal each other yet, since they’d known each other such a short amount of time. He figured crunching through the forest floor would be enough. If footsteps were how Keith had found Lance before, they would lead him to him again. Today it was silent. The chill of the air crept across his skin, like an unknown figure holding him close from behind, with skin as cold as ice. Something about the shadows seemed darker, as if there were shades to it he’d never noticed before. No birds sang melodies, no summer’s lullaby greeted him. Just the empty nothingness of quiet.

“Lance!” Keith’s voice cried once Lance reached the edge of his forest, trees seeming more dead than ever. “Why are you here?”

“We made a promise, didn’t we?” Lance grinned up at him. Keith took his place by his side. They didn’t need to speak of where they were headed. Their footsteps synced up with no hesitation, strides in perfect unison. “I brought something I think you’ll love.”

“Really?” 

Keith’s eyes lit up, sparkling with thousands of stars. The shock in his tone was so genuine, it nearly broke Lance’s heart. Keith hadn’t expected him to come back. He had expected Lance to abandon him, to leave him to wither away with the hope of someday having contact with someone from the outside. It must’ve meant the world to him that his promise hadn’t been broken. That Lance was right beside him, walking down to the creek, with a surprise from somewhere he’d never seen before. Keith probably couldn’t even him what the name of it was. He was sheltered so far away from the world that everything seemed new to him, like a baby first exploring on their own once they learn to walk. Lance was his balance, his anchor to the beyond that Keith had only caught glimpses of. His grip tightened on the crystal in his pocket, sighing in relief when he felt its smooth surface against his skin. This was the one thing Lance wanted to be perfect.

He just couldn’t put his finger on why.

They sat down together by the creekside. Neither of them grabbed a stone that day, excepting the one in Lance's pocket. Keith kicked his slippers off, dipping his feet into the rushing water. He started to giggle at something, kicking his legs up and down where he sat. Fish were nibbling at his toes, little orange ones with white scales. Koi. They circled around his heels, grabbing hold of any dead skin they could find. He wondered if that was similar to what they ate, something bland and flaky. It was strange to see them there, since they were so far away from a major body of water but Lance didn’t care too much about that. All that mattered to him right then was soaking in every moment of Keith’s laugh. It was Lance’s favorite thing about him, next to his eyes. He wanted to bottle it up so that he could open it and treasure it later, to have that sound always with him. It was like leaves blowing in the wind, shaky yet loud. There was something adorable about how, even when he was giggling, his nerves stayed with him. It made him seem like he was vulnerable, that if Lance wanted to, he could tell him everything and anything and he would understand. There was nothing to hide when someone laughed like Keith did. It was the invitation Lance needed to hold out his palm to him.

“What’s this?” Keith asked, staring at the quartz Lance had balanced in his palm. It was no bigger than a small earthworm yet it had nearly the width of a pipe. “Something to eat?”

“No.” Lance shook his head, cracking a half smile. “Hold it up to the light. You’ll see.”

Keith took it gingerly out of his palm, as to not break it. Something about the way he did it sent heat rushing to Lance’s cheeks. His hand jumped back a little at the touch of his fingertips. Keith noticed, holding on tightly to the crystal. It wasn’t like Lance to get flustered so easily. If he got worked up or if anything happened that anyone else would blush over, he did. This wasn’t one of them. It was two seconds, if that, of something that was less than holding hands. They’d already done that, which was what bothered him. If he was growing attached to him to that extent, wouldn’t he have reacted the same yesterday? It was true that Lance had grabbed Keith’s hand. He had been the one in control, the one who could let go and release him whenever he so chose. It was superiority at its smallest but it meant that he knew what he felt. Lance wanted to keep Keith close to him, that was why he had done it. Now, without that, he didn’t know how to react to his touch. Despite his wings having such sharp edges and shimmering an almost blood red, his skin was soft. Lance wished that he had took a hold of Keith’s hand instead but he couldn’t have.

There was no telling how Keith would’ve reacted.

Lance watched as he held the crystal up to an orange ray of sunlight. The rainbow effect wasn’t as strong as it had been earlier in the day but that didn’t stop Keith from gasping in awe. He held it at different angles, looked at it from all sides, even dipped it in the water to see how the water would change the way it looked. It didn’t but Lance let him have his fun. Once he got tired of it, Keith sat back beside him. Lance heard the crickets start up with their chirping, signaling that nightfall was closer than he’d anticipated. Flying in the dark was nearly impossible and he, for one, didn’t want to tear one of his wings.

“I should go.” Lance tried to stand but Keith took hold of his arm, dragging him back down. “I can’t stay out here with you, can I?”

“How do you think I’ve been able to live out here all these years?” Keith stood up now, still holding onto Lance. He had to bite his tongue so that he wouldn’t pull away from his grip. “Come on. I have enough space at my place for two.”

There was no point in arguing with him, Lance thought. He was exhausted. Fairies with weaker wings needed more rest than the average, since they had to regenerate their strength overnight. Pixie dust gave them the gift of flight but without their wings, they would have no control over where they were going. Their bodies would be stuck in a state of anti-gravity until the dust wore off. It was a mystery to Lance how Keith was flying. He didn’t want to ask any big questions that night. He was too eager to see where his cabin in the woods, so to speak, was. If it was small, filled with odds and ends Keith had collected from the edge of the forest, lost belongings repurposed for his admiration. If it had heating or a means of ventilation, so that he’d stay warm throughout the harsh winters and cool during the sweltering summers. A house was something that you built, a home was what you made it. Lance didn’t know what to expect from Keith but he felt like there would be red, like the fire he controlled. 

“Welcome home!” Keith dropped Lance’s arm, who exhaled a breath he didn’t even realize he had been holding. “I know it isn’t much but, make yourself comfortable!”

Lance was surprised by how intricate his house was, given the supplies he had out here that were much more primitive than those the tinker talents had developed on the inside. The outside was put together in a basic yet strong manner. Panels, slightly rotted from years of weathering, stacked up against the sides, adding a nice touch to it. The roof was made of a similar paneling, except it was dyed a dark red. With what, Lance knew not. The windows and door even had curtains, though they seemed like they provided little protection from the elements that beat down on his forest from time to time. The whole thing couldn’t have been more than the size of a storage shed yet somehow, the inside fit things Lance didn’t even know it could. There were two beds, a small bookshelf, a crate that seemed to be used as a dresser, and another shelf, filled with a selection of odds and ends. 

“It’s cute.” Lance enjoyed the coziness of it as Keith lit a lantern up with his magic. It fit perfectly with the rest of the decor, providing more than enough light for the two of them. “How hard was it to build?”

“Don’t remind me.” Keith groaned, flopping onto what Lance assumed to be his bed. “I’m just glad it’s held up this long.”

“Why two beds?”

Keith’s face fell after Lance asked this. It wasn’t noticeable, if you didn’t pay attention. It was an awkward pause between the question and answer, where he struggled to find the proper words to say. In those few seconds, Lance saw Keith’s eyes droop the slightest bit, along with his figure. Somebody else had slept in that bed and it seemed like they had meant an awful lot to Keith. 

“Preparation for visitors, I guess.” He giggled. “Though I never expected to have any.”

The two of them were beat. Keith ushered Lance to his bed from across the room, which was more of a half hearted arm wave in its general direction. The heat the lamp gave off, Lance realized, was their blankets. He took off his jacket and laid it over himself, turning on his side to face Keith. He was already asleep, face at peace. He looked young, younger than Lance, when he slept. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance could see something glinting on Keith’s shelf. It was the crystal from earlier. He grinned and turned to face the other way, noticing a strange mark carved into the wall. He ran his finger across the groove, wondering what it meant. It looked like a lightning bolt but with curved edges. Lance wasn’t about to wake him up to ask him. Keith’s magic seemed to wear him out, more than Lance’s did. As he drifted off to sleep, lulled by the gentle breathing that escaped Keith’s mouth behind him, one thought haunted him.

Whoever had slept in this bed had been the fairy who had broken their promise to Keith.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to get all mushy on you guys but I wanted to say a big thank you, as Saturday was the one month anniversary of the first chapter of A Summer's Lullaby! Thank you all for sticking around and for those of you who joined along the way, thank you for your constant support. I know I don't reply to comments much but I read them, and they mean the world to me. I'm glad I can be someone that makes you guys as happy as fic writers made me when I was younger. By the way, you can call me Mei. <3

Rain. 

Lance heard it as it started in the middle of the night. The drops were heavy, crashing loudly against the rooftop. He hadn’t been able to sleep to begin with. It was all Lance could do to not get up and fly away right then. If it hadn’t been for the risk of one or both of his wings tearing, he would’ve done it and gotten home in a dash, nearly faster than the speed of light. Something about the closeness of the two of them, how Lance could nearly reach across the emptiness between them and take Keith’s hand in his own, frightened him. The height of it didn’t come from the fact itself, more so that he’d thought of it. Lance looked at Keith, unknowing to the fondness his eyes held. They captured some of the stars he claimed to be in Keith’s, sparkling brightly in his own. It was as if he wanted Keith to see what Lance saw him as, a galaxy to be admired from a distance.

The only other time they had shined like this was when he first laid eyes on Allura.

That was something that had made sense. The feeling when he looked at her had been instant. The longing to have her in his arms, the desire to whisper words of her beauty and the grace she held without trying into her ear. He hadn’t hesitated when he was around her. Call it confidence and you’d be wrong. Inside, he felt the same as he sat awake in the night, as he did then. He knew there was no way to get to her if he didn’t act like he was stronger than he was. Nobody wanted somebody as weak as him. Lance knew he was from the moment his breath hitched in his throat when Allura said hello. Somehow he turned that anxiety, that fear that she’d leave him without warning when they didn’t even know each other’s names, into flirtation.

“I’ve never seen heaven on Earth,” He started, it coming to him second nature. “But I bet it’d look something like you.”

When she looked at him, there was nothing but a mixture of genuine confusion and concern in her eyes, as if he had a spider crawling on his face and didn’t know if she should tell him or not. Allura introduced Lance to Pidge, Hunk, and Coran, who held an extra protectiveness over her than the others as he glared at Lance, in an attempt to change the subject. He hadn’t paid much attention to them that day. The world seemed to fall away around Allura, accentuating the purity she carried. That was what she looked like, Lance thought as he looked at her. A lily, with her white hair falling around her head in the form of layered petals. Nothing but the sound of her voice filled his ears, the birds and leaves meaning nothing to him. They didn’t mean anything to him until he’d lost the only thing he had hope for. Her love.

No words whispered out to him from the Earth until Lance accepted that Allura would never be into him. The realization came to him in a shock, one that felt like an earthquake, breaking apart the foundation which made Lance himself. It thrust him into the woods with an aching in his heart, longing for somewhere to hide away from her. In his haste, he took a wrong turn, stumbling upon a babbling brook, far away from the fairies that slept soundly in their homes. He took solace in it, turning it into his sanctuary for the night. This was how he ended up learning the nooks and crannies of their world. It expanded his thirst for adventure, turning it into a beast where it had once been the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the back of his mind. Adventuring had been a hobby and nothing more, but after Lance had spent five hours that evening sitting in the woods, under the pale light of the moon and soft twinkling of the stars, it became an addiction. A switch had been flipped that could never be changed.

It was then that the world began to let him in on the words it longed for someone to hear. He thought that it was just his imagination, the breeze blowing through the bushes, the chattering of a racoon. Anything that he could tell himself to make it seem like his sanity was still there, he did. Once he cleared his head, taking in another deep breath of the humid evening air, the voice emerged louder than before. It sang to him, this time to assure him that he wasn’t insane. Lance started out humming with it until he, too, sang the hidden song of nature. It was real, a phenomenon that made him sound like he was making it up whenever he tried to explain it to his friends. They waved it off, saying that the world had no secrets to tell. All the things they knew of it, they documented, the unknown being somewhere they never dared to go. It was risky, a bet made with the devil that snapped at their heels, forcing them back to where they belonged.

They were wrong in believing that. Nature, as open and welcoming as it may seem, hides many things right under the tip of your nose that you’ll never understand in your lifetime. The gift Lance possessed was seemingly one of a kind. He was someone so aware of the minutest of things around him that, once it began, it was hard for him to turn it off. Not everything it had to tell him were the stories he’d been told. What Lance heard were things he couldn’t admit, even to himself. While some were wonders, ranging from spells that he practice in secret to new constellations, unnamed and unmarked by the fairies who’d spent years studying the sky, others were horrors. There was blood. Wounds, sometimes fatal, left the land tainted with the lives of the creatures it depended upon. There was war. Weapons, ranging from ones of mass destruction to ones not strong enough, dug into the bodies of thousands. Cadavers were burned for weeks on end, ashes thought to be lost in the soil forever carried on as flowers, in memory of the fallen.

Lance wondered if Keith heard these things. If these thoughts ever plagued his dreams, turning them into nightmares so vivid they could almost be mistaken for memories. Lance took advantage of the storm that was brewing outside, honing in on it with all of his might. All he could hear was the occasional crack of lightning against one of the trees. No voice called out to him, luring him deeper into the void that laid just beyond the state of reality and an alternate, where nature was as alive as they were. It had thoughts like they had, felt like they did, and sang in harmony more beautiful than those performed at their theater. The Earth beneath them was a creature, the same as any fairy, as any human, was. Unlike most of them, however, it was tramped on for years with nobody to listen. That was, until creatures became just as desolate as it was. They lived out their days as shadows walking amongst the light, just like he did.

Except Lance could no longer hear it.

Nerves took their hold of his heart. They twisted in tendrils around his lungs, causing it to pump more blood throughout his veins. The racing of it seemed to last for hours, until the darkness of the sky lit up ever so slightly into the dreary grey of a rainy day. It was the first time since the beginning the melodies had taken their form that Lance wasn’t able to listen. The storm had cleared up and he kept trying. It wasn’t what had affected his hearing, he learned after his tenth failed attempt. He flopped his head back down onto the pillow, turning to face Keith. He had managed to sleep through it, to Lance’s surprise. He tried to think of ways he could go back. There wasn’t anything, aside from the thin leaf blanket that covered him, that had a chance of holding up out there. It wasn’t pouring as it had been earlier but it wasn’t drizzling either. Even if he did take the blanket, he wasn’t sure if it would hold up, since it was about as thin as his wings, if not thinner. 

“You’re up early.” Keith’s voice startled him from across the room. “Something wrong?”

“It’s raining.” Lance replied, trying his best to calm his jumpiness, wondering how he could make him feel both terrified and intrigued at the same time. “Has been since last night.”

“Seriously?”

Keith flew to the window, pulling back the moth-eaten curtains. For how tattered and faded they looked, they’d managed to keep the room rather dry, save a few droplets here and there. A similar fabric covered the doorway, which he threw back to reveal a layer of fog, rolling across the ground in thick clouds. Lance sat up so he could see Keith better. His eyes glowed brighter the more he stared, lightening to a hue close to that of the lake from which Lance had fled the day prior. You could practically see the ripples of the surface of it dance throughout them. It was a gaze that illuminated the eyes of those who’d fallen in love, similar to the light that danced throughout Lance’s own. His heart smiled at Keith’s child-like enthusiasm. There was something so familiar about this feeling, something he couldn’t quite place. He stopped pondering it when he noticed Keith looking at him.

“What?” Lance asked. He started fussing with his hair. “Do I have bed head or something?”

“No.” Keith laughed. It rang out with such an authenticity that Lance laughed a little, too. “You’ve never been out in the rain?”

“I have once but,” Lance turned his back to Keith and flapped them. “It injured my wings.”

When a fairy’s wings are weakened, they hardly even notice it themselves. Nothing feels different when they’re flying, as they slice through the air just the same. Nothing feels out of place when there’s weight on them, as they fold up and slide right under as they always do. The way to tell the true amount of damage they’ve sustained is through light. No matter how faint it is, fairies with weaker wings have a different pattern to them. Where most have intricate swirls and curves that etch themselves in patterns so delicate, the injured have ones that are warped. The color, whatever it may be, glimmers the same but there’s something off about the lines. They merge together in strange places, turning once soft curves into jumbles of lines. There was no cure for them. They followed those who dared to test their limits as a curse, an everlasting reminder to stay inside when it rained, away from the cause of it all.

Lance felt Keith’s hand run its way along their edges. He traced all of the lines, pressing ever so lightly, with his finger. Once he let go, he tapped Lance on the shoulder. He turned around to face Keith, whose wings were now facing him. There was something chaotic in the way the lines ran throughout his. They were jagged like the edges but had more of a hardness than even they possessed. As he had to him, Lance found himself running his fingers along the edges, stopping at one point in particular. Letting his curiosity get the best of himself, he pressed into it. Pain, sudden and shocking, bloomed in his fingertip. Keith noticed Lance’s yelp of pain, taking his hand in his. Before Lance could object, his finger was up to Keith’s lips. He sucked on it gently, taking the blood away with it. When he was done, Lance’s cheeks were flaming. He tried to hide it from Keith who stood up, taking something off of the shelf.

“Sorry.” Keith said when he sat back down in front of Lance, taking his pointer finger in his hand once more. “I should’ve warned you.”

Lance couldn’t respond. No words could form in his head other than ones he couldn’t say aloud. Thank you would’ve been the easiest, but they were a while down the list. His immediate response was how soft his lips felt, which wasn’t entirely wrong. They felt like petals, moistened slightly by his saliva. It was disgusting, Lance thought, how that’s what he wanted to say. Complimenting someone’s lips and the way they felt was too on the nose. Either way you looked at it, it was suggestive. His alternates weren’t any better. Lance wanted to say how strong his wings seemed but that seemed obvious, as he’d had them for all of his life. He wanted to say how he wished they were his but he didn’t want that to upset him. While they might’ve been tough, Keith wasn’t. The very way he handled Lance, with the delicacy of someone holding fine china, was proof enough. He didn’t know how easily he would shatter and he couldn’t risk it. Keith might’ve been able to handle the abandonment but Lance couldn’t. He wasn’t used to it.  
“All done.” Keith bit the end of the bandage, putting the cloth back into its little tin container. “Does it feel too tight?”

Lance wiggled his finger, testing it out. To his amazement, it felt better than the wrappings he’d had done at the infirmary. The doctors were in much more of a hurry than Keith was, which was where Lance figured they lost that almost motherly touch that you needed when taking care of someone. The aura Keith got around himself when he cared for Lance was something that he could feel pass through his body, calming him with a feeling similar to that he got when he’d sit in the woods, petting the little heads of chipmunks. It was a calming adoration. Lance had only felt it those days when he knelt in front of those creatures, their hopeful dark eyes looking up at him from the ground. He would feed them the scraps he brought from dinner, if he had any, watching as they ate with that same feeling. Keith seemed to notice how entranced Lance was, as he waved his hand in front of his face. Lance shook his head, snapping himself out of it.

“Someone’s off in a world of his own.” Keith put the container back, grabbing something else off of the shelf. A book. He looked around for something else, finding it with a sudden hurrah. A pencil. He set it out in front of him on the bed, revealing empty page after empty page. “Maybe this will bring you back into reality.”

“Why is it empty?” Lance asked as Keith turned the book to face him, passing the pencil along with it. “I’m not a very good writer.”

“That’s fine.” Keith seemed so calm. Lance wondered how he could be, with them so close on one bed. “You don’t have to be. I just wanted you to teach me.”

“Teach you how to write?”

“Yeah.” Keith grabbed another book off of the shelf, this time one filled up with words and drawings. Lance caught a glimpse of a name he’d never seen before. “This was the book I used for lessons, back when there was someone here to teach me.”

“Was his name Shiro?” Lance asked, cautiously. He dropped his voice to just above a whisper for the second question, uncertain as to if it was taking it one step too. “Was he the one who broke your promise?”

Keith didn’t respond. Where the comforting aura had been, a hopeless shadow of sadness replaced it. It was the kind you felt when someone died and you knew they’d never come back. That emptiness when you couldn’t hear their voice again, even though it echoed in your ears, no matter how hard you tried to get it to leave you alone. The frown you saw in everyone’s smile, for it would never look quite the same as theirs, since there was something about the way they curled their lips that made it unique to them. The loneliness that loomed over you in the middle of the night when you knew that they weren’t breathing anymore, where you were somehow laying there, attempting to sleep while they slept forever with corpses underground. It was a feeling Lance hadn’t ever experienced. It hit him as a shock but he held tightly onto it. He wouldn’t let Keith hurt alone. Not anymore. 

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.” Keith said, twiddling with his fingers. There were the tiniest tears, stuffed into the crevices of his tear ducts. Lance thought they must’ve hurt. It's harder to hold tears in than to let them out. “It’s dangerous to go out there alone. He couldn’t have made it back even if he’d wanted to, if they got a hold of him.”

“How long did you know him?”

“Up until a few months ago.” Keith tried counting the years, months, days, whatever it was that he used to track their time together. He gave up a few moments later, seeming to remember that he’d forgotten just how long ago it was. “I thought he’d be back.” 

Keith leaned down and pulled something out from underneath the bed’s wooden frame. A knife, about half of the size of his forearm, rested in his hand. He held the pointed side carefully, exposing the handle for Lance to see. On it was a purple mark, almost glowing, in a language he’d never seen before. It could’ve meant nothing but from the way Keith looked at it, it seemed to mean something. His eyes saw it as a promise, a sign that everything was going to be okay. It was something he was supposed to look for. Lance had seen it once, a few months ago, around the time Keith had last seen Shiro. It’d been some ways away from a place downstream, close to Allura’s place, etched into a tree. The symbol had been no bigger than his thumb. It would’ve been unnoticeable, had he not been looking closely. It seemed to be a way to communicate between the two of them, though it hadn’t worked out in the way they’d planned.

“I’ve seen this before.” Lance said, taking the knife in his own hands. It was sturdy, shining an industrial-strength grey underneath the light, that Keith had lit in the midst of tending to Lance earlier. He’d also closed the curtains, tying them shut with some string. He did such little things to protect Lance that when he noticed, he couldn’t help but smile. “It was on a tree, a while from here, near my friend’s place.”

“I wonder if that was the only mark he made.” Keith looked down at the symbol, a desperate longing to see Shiro again in his eyes. “It means family, you know. We made it up together, before he left.”

“Family?”

 

Keith nodded. “He was like a brother to me.”

“I’m sorry.” Lance had never been good at comforting people but if there was one thing he was good at, it was listening. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“I know you are.” Keith took the pencil from out of Lance’s hand, that he’d been twirling without realizing, and scribbled something down on the paper. “That’s what makes you so special to me.”

The mark almost looked like a heart, tilted on its side, with a line curving the other direction. Lance couldn’t make sense of what it meant. He’d never seen a language like this before. It wasn’t something that the human world communicated with and it wasn’t something that fairies did, either. The other book had been something Lance could read. This wasn’t. It was nothing more than a doodle to him, an elegant one at that, but it held no meaning, where it looked like it meant the world and some more to Keith.

“What does this mean?”

“Angel.” Keith said this dreamily, with lots of love in his voice. “You’re the one who saved me from leaving. That day I met you, I was starting my travel out to find Shiro. I didn’t care about the risks, I just wanted to feel like I had my family again.”

He took Lance’s hands in his own, who wanted to object but couldn’t, frozen in place by the suddenness of the gesture. He’d never been this close to anybody, felt this way with anybody. His fear was saving him the trouble of fighting. Even it wanted him to learn to accept what Keith was giving to him.

“While I still miss him,” He slid his fingers across the backs of Lance’s palms, sending a shock of warmth up his spine. “Now I have you. There’s nobody out there who can replace him but you’re the closest I’ll ever get. You’re not family. You’re something more than that, something I can only describe as an angel. I don’t have any other word to explain it.”

“Thank you.” Lance whispered. He couldn’t raise his voice much louder, or he feared he’d burst into uncontrollable sobs, as he tended to do when his emotions ran high. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever had someone say about me.”

“Don’t thank me.” Keith let go of his hands, writing Shiro’s name down in characters Lance could read. “Thank him.”

They spent the rest of the day together. Lance taught Keith more of the fairy language they spoke and wrote, as well as helping him to document the things he told him about the world that lay just beyond the one he knew. Keith taught Lance the symbols that he and Shiro had used to communicate with each other, back when he was around. It was the safest way, he told Lance, that they could tell each other where they were without fear of any curious fairies or spies catching on. They filled nearly the whole book up with doodles, facts, messed up practices and nonsense that they kept so that they’d remember this day for years to come. The worry that had tightened up Lance’s movements melted under the heat of the lamp above, no longer blushing when the two of them brushed hands or leaned in close to each other to make jokes. It was time Lance wished could last forever but as the sun began to set on the horizon, the rain began to dissipate, and so did his hopes that nobody would notice his absence. 

“I have to go home.”

Lance blurted it out with no warning, while Keith was mid sentence in his writing. He dropped the pencil and looked up at him, something telling Lance that he’d been expecting it. Even so, his words hung in the air. Their hearts became heavy with every moment of silence that passed, heartache tangible. The bond between them was unique, the two had realized throughout the day. Thought Keith said he was an angel, it seemed to be something more than that. Lance wasn’t there just to protect him from the ones who wanted to bring about nothing but harm upon Keith. It wasn’t a friendship but it wasn’t romantic, either. It was something of soulmates but not quite. Soulmates was the closest way to describe it. Their hearts seemed to beat as one, their feelings seemed to be felt through the other, no matter what it was. They sensed the tiniest things that were wrong down to the tiniest acts of kindness that they did for each other. It was a bond that neither of them would ever break. They didn’t believe they could even if they tried.

When they got up off of the bed, something surprised Lance. Just before he turned to leave, Keith pulled him in for a hug. It was tight, as if Lance were leaving him just like Shiro had. It was the kind of hug that you felt guilty to leave, because you knew that they needed someone there to support them. Keith stroked Lance’s wings softly one last time, as Lance placed his hands on Keith’s shoulders. Something about this seemed awkward yet it seemed to fit their relationship perfectly. Strange yet comforting. Keith mumbled something that Lance couldn’t quite hear into his ear, wiping tears from his eyes as he pulled away. Lance didn’t ask what he had said, simply waved goodbye and thanked him for everything, promising he’d have something even better to bring him tomorrow. The crystal sat on Keith’s shelf as Lance flew home, careful to disguise where he had been.

Nobody was at his home when he arrived. His front steps were still a little slippery from the storm earlier but he was careful. He plopped down on his own bed, ready to settle down in for the night, when he felt something underneath of his head. It was small and when he pulled it out from underneath of him, he knew what he was about to read. Opening the envelope, in Allura’s flowy writing, were the words Lance couldn’t process. The ones that he didn’t want to read. The ones that made him rip it up, throw the pieces into the fireplace, and light up a fire over them. He sat down in front of it, unable to accept what it’d said. Lance looked out of his window, thinking only of the words that loomed above him in the form of a demon, taunting his every breath.

I know that you’re friends with the monster.


	6. Chapter 6

Lance had only a few hours to make his decision.

The seconds in them seemed to tick by slower than the footsteps of a turtle, dragged out to what seemed like minutes. His reality had caught up to him for real. Keith wasn’t some fantasy he could chase after in secret. He wasn’t somebody who could protect him, as much as Lance wished he could. Keith was a danger but not in the way Allura believed. Once she’d made up her mind, it was set in stone. There was no changing the way she perceived Keith, no matter what Lance could tell her about him. How the only reason he was home safe and sound was because of him. How anxious and shy Keith was when it came to anything regarding himself, retreating like a cub to its den when prodded. The one thing that Lance wouldn’t ever be able to tell her was the reason that meant the most. It was the one that would make her understand, at least to some extent, why he didn’t care what became of himself. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind anymore about the one thing that was truest about Keith.

He was the one person Lance didn’t have to be afraid of.

The powers he possessed, the ones that nobody knew about but him, Lance could show to Keith. He didn’t have to be afraid of how he would react, since there was nothing to be discerned from Keith’s end other than a nearly tangible awe. Lance had never made a pair of eyes light up so bright in his entire lifetime. Whenever other fairies looked at him, it wasn’t the same. Most were jealous talents, ones who watched as he flew back home for the day. Partially because his wings were almost always worn out by midday, but partially because there was nothing else he needed to do. The envy was evident, some taking it a few steps further. A whisper behind his back to a friend as he passed. A drop of saliva that landed somewhere on the ground close to him. His strength to turn the other cheek shone stronger than their actions when it came down to it. It was comforting around Keith, to not have to worry about being judged, since he had been judged for as long as he existed.

As much as he tried to ignore it, the words that Allura had written were unbelievable to Lance. He kept picking up the paper from his bedside table, reading it, placing it back down on top of it, then standing up from where he sat so he could pace around once more. It was a surreal nightmare, turning his home into shades of black and white where he had once seen warm shades of browns. There were a few occasional splashes of color, except they were blinding, reminding him of the lives he’d soon leave behind. At first he couldn’t look at them, too afraid to face them head on. Goodbyes had never been Lance’s strong suit. He knew the names of countless fairies, more than he could count on his hands and toes, yet there was always something hollow left inside of him when he lifted his hand to say that final farewell. Somehow, one by one, he mustered up the courage to face each of them. The reality of leaving had settled in on him, his final parting from his nest, perched high up in a tree. It’d been a short hour or so of pacing but he realized there was no other choice. If he was to be the angel Keith thought of him as, there was no way in all of Maple Grove that he could stay.

He scanned the room, looking for the first color that spoke to him. 

The green tea cup he’d left on his bedside table was the first thing that stood out to him, now accompanied by the face of Pidge. Her eyes were sat just above the rim, staring at him in that disappointed yet laughable way of hers. They were constantly rolling at almost everything Lance did. Sometimes he’d joke and ask if they’d ever tried to roll away from her. She tried to deny her giggles but she always broke into a fit of them after a few minutes. It wasn’t the joke that ever got her, it was what she called Lance’s goofball nature itself. He’d deny being that way, saying he was cooler, worth more than that title. But his lips always curled themselves, even subtly, into the sort of smile he got only when she was around. There was a certain smile that you smiled at every person. None of them were ever the same, none of them gave off the exact same feeling, yet they belonged to you. Lance could only think of one smile as he thought this but he pushed it out of his mind.

A yellow shirt, faded and torn from months of wear, hung across the footboard of Lance’s bed. He flew over to it and took it in his hand, breathing in the subtle scent of petals it still had. Hunk stood in front of him, only a ghost of the friend he knew. Lance wished he was actually here. They, unlike when he hung out with Pidge or Allura, had spent some good times together. He’d taught him how to sew, to a certain extent. It usually ended in Lance pricking himself one too many times but that didn’t deter his mentor. Every time he would get frustrated with how to thread the needle, Hunk would help him. His hands carried such a gracefulness about them, a gentle nature that Lance could only compare to that of the golden heart he had. It took all he could to not tear the fabric of his shirt. It balled up inside of his hands. He clutched onto it as if it was the last thing he had left in this world, that once he let go of this, there would be nothing left. No comforting words to meet his nightmares when he stumbled to his doorstep at hours so late, most would leave the door shut. No favors done without asking, despite him telling Hunk that he didn’t owe him anything. It wasn’t about owing him anything, he always said. It was about giving him kindness so that there was an even level of it between the both of them. Except Lance had never done anything like that for Hunk, and he never would. Another heart reminded him of the beating of his own, Lance shoving the shirt in his bag that he now packed to distract himself from the thought.

The final object seemed to pierce his heart, despite the distance it was away from him. Lance couldn’t even see it that well, it looking like a smear of pinks and purples on a blank canvas, yet he knew what it was right away. It sat atop his bookcase, hidden behind a few vases that were perched on its edge. His steps towards it were cautious, as if the object were an animal on the verge of attack. He took it in his hand, thumb brushing across the petrified blossoms, attached to it with a now hardened sap. It looked like honey, in the way that it dripped down the sides of the clip. It reminded him of Allura’s voice, sweet and rich. The one that told him stories in her garden until twilight, when the creatures of the night arose from their daily slumber to conquer the never ending liveliness of nature. The only time things seemed to stop was during the winter months, when Allura and Lance would continue their talks inside her home. He wondered why she’d stopped letting him inside but it didn’t matter. He’d long since forgotten what it looked like. Only one home made its way into his mind.

Home.

That was where he was headed. He realized it as he tucked the barrette into his pocket, petals crumbling slightly under his touch. Home was the place where you wanted to be, whether it be a person, place, or even an idea. It was something that felt like comfort, even from a distance away. The feeling it gave you wasn’t quite love, more so the thought of it. It made the dreams you wished upon stars to come true seem possible, simply by existing. It made those stars seem closer, so close that it seemed if you held your hands up to the sky, your fingertips could brush them. The stardust you captured would be enough to last a lifetime, yet it was the knowing that it was there that meant the most. Infinity was yours, if only you could find the something that made it that way. Lance’s home had never been here. He’d dressed it up, filled it with mementos of his memories from times he wanted to take the time in the future to look back on, with a fondness distinctive to each. He’d lit fires to watch the embers, hoping it would fill the longing he felt in his heart. It was homesickness, he realized, brought about by one fairy who spent his days living a life of fear in a forest just as equally terrifying.

His home was Keith.

In only a matter of not even a week, he’d managed to turn his life upside down, in a way that his three friends never could. Lance would die for them, any one of them, if it came down to it. He would help them out with the tiniest of favors, if they came calling for his help. They always had to ask him for assistance or be in his presence for him to think about them it seemed. Only one other time in his life before Keith had he felt this way about someone, but she had been someone he would’ve loved. Keith was something similar but not love. Lance couldn’t put his finger on a word for it. All he knew was that the memories he made with his friends had an air of phoniness about them, something bitter in the normally sweet nature of his mind. These floorboards had been stepped on by their shoes but it made no difference if they had been here or out at a cafe. This house merely provided shelter, nothing more and nothing less. It was a place he felt he had to return to, an obligation bound in wood and nails. He would never remember this place with any hint of joy in his thoughts. It would all be black and white, as it was now that he’d cleared it out of brightness and hue. 

One last time, he laid his hand to rest upon his dining room table. The feeling of it was practically coded into his nerves, them knowing just what part they were feeling the instant he set it down. The way the grain swirled and striped, in gentle grooves that Lance traced his finger about. He’d always done that, on afternoons when it hurt him too much to look at the rain. While it tapped rhythmically on his roof, he’d start to hum. There was no tune for him to go by, no words whispered to him from the outside. This was something all his own. It had always been somewhere within him, buried treasure hidden down inside a cavern he rarely explored. The world had taught him how to listen, how to open his mind up and connect with himself. Sometimes this song would waver, fading out of his memory, only to reappear on days when the sun refused to shine. He wanted to hold onto it on the sunny days, so that he might be able to conjure up the rain with his words.

He wondered if he forgot it because it would work if he decided to sing it.

Hoisting his bag over his shoulder, he slammed the door shut on the lie of a life he’d lived. There was no hollowness to be found when he said goodbye now, only a burning desire to leave the place that neither accepted nor praised talent. They claimed to and they did. This was only within the confines they knew, the extent to which their minds could reach in grasping the amount of power one could possess, simply by manipulating their power through thought. It was something that they feared, shunned, and terminated, if the suspicion could be confirmed. Lance had seen it happen with his own eyes. He forgot the name of the girl, something that sounded light and airy but he couldn’t forget her face. Rather, the expression on it when they came knocking on her doorstep in the dead of night. He peeked out of his window after he heard them banging on the door and her muffled screams. There was just enough moonlight to make out the hooded figures, three of them, restraining the struggling fairy to take her away. She quieted down after some time. Lance noticed that they stuck something in her arm for that, a vial of something he’d never seen before. They were off before they could wake any of the others up.

It was traumatic to watch from a distance, without being able to do a thing to help. He could’ve. He could’ve flung open his door and rushed to the girl’s side, saving her from whatever torture he was certain they had in store for the innocent victim. There was one thing he’d caught with his vision that made his stomach uneasy. Something bright orange stuck out from one of their hoods, similar to the way Coran’s mustache did from his face. It was for a few seconds, not enough to conclude anything, but there was an inkling in Lance’s mind that something was brewing underneath their noses. It was change in a way that nobody wanted, though he wondered if they thought it was to protect the others. If fairies like him developed powers they were incapable of controlling or ones with the ability to destroy or harm at a moment’s notice, they could revolt against the ways that had been hammered into their brains from the moment they rose up out of the fallen tufts of dandelion fluff. There had to be ones out there like him, ones that could manipulate their talent to fall under different categories than what was deemed the jurisdiction of theirs. Lance wondered if they were expressed in some fairies differently, such as other talents separate from what their magic could manipulate all together. Or they’d found a way to incorporate their innate powers into something else, something that they did as a hobby, so as to not make it obvious to the rest of society what they were capable of. It was something to ponder but for later.

Right now he had to figure out how fast his wings could fly. 

It was something that had occurred to Lance while he was standing outside his door. Fairy dust was about as obvious as a siren, glowing as loud as the shrill noises they made. The higher up he flew, the more of a risk he was at of being caught. He was certain Allura had told somebody about his disappearance by now. It was more obvious than ever why he was there, why he was so secretive about the things he did. Pidge would be on the lookout for him and so would Hunk, as well as those hooded fairies. Lance wasn’t about to break his promise in his haste. All he had to do was fly faster than he ever had before, faster than the fast flying talents did when they created the winds that blew the odd leaves that remained, clung to the trees with their last bit of life. If need be, he could will his magic to be in his favor. Bring up some water from the puddles that remained from the day’s rain, just so he could splash them in their faces. He doubted he’d have to. Lance’s wings had seemed to gain some sort of a layer to them, a protective one from the initial impact of the wind. He shivered less than usual, especially for this time of year. It was a welcome change for the days he cherished with all of his heart. 

Lance wished that summer would last forever, so that he might hear how the song of the season ended. It was a melody that could take him months, even years, of summer’s trying to capture all the lyrics on his tongue. They were like the first snowflakes of winter. Once they left, they seemed to melted into the ground, out of his reach. Only if he could catch them would he remember. It was a dream that seemed impossible. The story it told, from the parts he’d pieced together, seemed to not have happened yet. It was the future told on the wind, one that he was unsure of. He would never be certain until he finished its chorus and the words that followed. That was what propelled his feet to take the last steps they would ever take leaving his house, propelling him into the emptiness of the night before him.

It was a night just like any other, alive with the sounds of cicadas and nocturnal critters, come out of their burrows to gather what food they could for the evening. While there were no clouds for Lance to make pictures out of, distractions from the endless abyss he seemed to be floating in, he was greeted by the twinkling lights of millions of stars. They appeared above him in blurs, as if someone had pasted glitter upon a piece of black paper, tilting it back and forth vigorously. It was a stunning sight and an unwanted distraction all at once. He focused on his journey as much as he could, but, every few minutes, his eyes would drift upward. Two constellations caught his attention every time. Sagittarius and Scutum. The archer and the shield. Sagittarius reminded him of Keith, while Scutum was himself. A warrior and his protection, paired up by fate to survive despite the odds that piled up in endless suffocating reality against them. It was the sight of them that pushed Lance’s wings to their limit and beyond. Shield’s were meant to be solid, something that could be depended upon in a time of battle. That’s all that Lance wanted to be for Keith, someone he could open up to and find strength in. It would take time for him to open up, like a rock that had a crystal buried inside of it. Overtime, Lance would chip away at it, asking the right question here, suggesting something there. Never would he ask something direct, or he’d risk breaking Keith’s heart. It was fine, Lance thought, to take his time.

Especially since he didn’t know how to fix a broken home.

\---------------------------

Landing on his feet, Lance was careful to hover just above the ground. It didn’t matter as much during the day if he walked or not, as these woods were notorious for being overrun by rodents and such. At nighttime, the story was different. Bats, owls, and cicadas were all that seemed to live here, save a few foxes and raccoons. His wings were nearing exhaustion but Lance stayed strong, forcing them to keep him afloat. His bag hadn’t weighed as much as he had expected it to. He’d left all the heavier items behind, only bringing the objects he wanted to show Keith, as well as some clothes and other necessities. Even with his head spinning and heart racing, Lance had managed to keep their promise. There was a sort of magic to something sworn on your pinky, an innocent charm that made it too pure to break. He held the finger and wished on it, hoping that Keith would somehow feel it too, so that he’d be home once again.

The soft rushing of the creek’s water marked the clearing where Lance had first seen Keith face to face. Lance flew through the trees, pausing for a moment to admire the scenery before him. The moonlight made the water turn into a sea of crystal, ripples forming soft circles, overpowering the jaggedness of the waves. It was a sight that seemed to be right out of a story from fairy’s past, one of the fables he remembered reading in a book, haphazardly, flipping through the pages at a speed faster than lightning. Now that Lance was here, he was safe. All the time in the world was his to spend, whether it be stargazing or rock tossing. Every minute of it that was available would be spent with Keith from this day forward. Lance would be at peace, for the first time ever in his life. With Keith, he could drop the barrier that he had up, to protect himself from slipping up in front of the other fairies. No longer would any dare to try and spy on them, for now they knew now that Keith was by his side, the most powerful ally in a war against them. It was in these woods that Lance had one wish, one thing that he hoped to come true.

That here they would sing a summer’s lullaby, for an audience that would give them no applause.

\--------------------------------------

No longer able to fly, Lance treaded cautiously to the forest of dead trees. It was a night so silent that he could’ve sworn he heard weeping on the wind, a choir of tears from disembodied voices. Souls bound to this forest, connected to their talent even in death. He let out a sigh of relief as he walked through the trees, legs seeming to know where he was going faster than his mind could lead them. It was a miracle that nobody had noticed his escape. One victory for the outsiders against the many of the insiders. An amber light burned softly in the distance, muted from the curtains he knew hung in front of the makeshift doorway and windows. He started to pick up his pace, despite the exhaustion that threatened to send him toppling to the ground. It was a feeling of immeasurable joy, one that couldn’t be constrained by matters that seemed as little as the amount of energy he had left. Standing in front of it, he knocked on the wood next to the curtain. Gently, so as to not send the structure toppling over. It’d been there for years but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t fall. 

“Lance?” Keith appeared at the door a few moments later, with sleepy eyes that he tried to rub away. “What’re you doing back? I thought you had to go home.”

“I did.” Lance smiled, dropping his bag beside him. “That’s why I’m here.”

The two of them stood there by the firelight, hearts beating to the rhythm of the other’s. It was a moment of realization for Keith, one that drove him close to tears. It was a moment of hope for Lance, one that he wished would last for nights innumerable and sleepless. It ended before he could process the reality of what he had just said, something that he wouldn’t understand for quite some time. Keith pulled back the curtain so he could enter, grabbing Lance’s bag before he could argue. The closeness of the two of them seemed to bother Lance less now. Whether it be that he wanted to keep Keith close or that he simply accepted at there was nothing he could do to change it, he knew not. The two of them sat across from each other, each on their respective bed. Keith put Lance’s belongings in front of him, biting his lip with concern.

“Do they know about me?” Keith asked, in a careful whisper. “You didn’t tell them about me, did you?”

This accusation came with a stab to the chest for Lance, despite him knowing how justified it was. He couldn’t answer right away, looking down at his fingers to avoid the question. This would make Keith more suspicious, push the little trust they had between each other and bonding out of the window. Lance knew this, yet he couldn’t force himself to say anything until he’d thought of the proper way to say it. There was no way to put news of this severity delicately. No words he could think of would sugar coat it, give it a cushion that would make it easier for Keith to handle. Lance decided now was better than ever to bite the bullet, to face the truth head on.

“I didn’t say a word about you.” He began, still unable to meet Keith’s eyes. “Allura found out on her own. I think she was the one spying on us, or she sent Pidge or someone else in her place. I don’t think they’ll want to come out here to get me. They think I’m friends with a monster.”

“And you’re not?”

“No.” Lance raised his head, trying to keep his voice strong. “I’m friends with someone who can do some of the coolest things with the flick of his wrist. I’m friends with someone who has feelings, a heart, a mind, just like any other fairy. I’m friends with someone who’s made me feel like you can find a home in anything, even a person. I’m friends with you, Keith.”

“And I’m friends with you, Lance.” Keith bent down to pick up his things, resting them now by Lance’s bed. He kneeled down in front of him, looking up at him with his eyes full of hope concealed in stars. Lance shivered, pulling the blanket on his bed around his shoulders. Keith frowned, patting the pillow to get him to lie down. Lance obliged. “Can I try something?”

Lance nodded, only half conscious of what he was saying. In a sudden gust of air, the sheets around him raised a few degrees in warmth. He snuggled into it, the feeling reminding him of the nights he’d light his fireplace. Looking at Keith, he thanked him, trying not to let sleep turn him into the mess of emotions he could’ve. When the tears didn’t come, he waited for Keith to climb into his own bed. After all, Lance had interrupted his night, waking him up abruptly. He didn’t. Lance tried to get up but Keith pushed him back down, now sitting next to his legs on the bed. Before he could argue, Keith began to sing. He’d heard the words before, knew the melody well, yet he couldn’t put his finger on the song. The way his voice fell and grew with such beautiful notes reminded Lance of a harp, strings plucked in the tune of his words. 

“I know that song.” Lance said, turning his neck so he could get a better view of Keith. “You can sing better than anyone I know.”

“Thank you.” Keith said, ducking his face down. Lance didn’t know why, but he had the suspicion that he was blushing. “I’ve never actually sang for anyone before.”

“I’m glad I got to be the first to hear it.” Lance closed his eyes as Keith got up. “Goodnight, Keith.”

He felt lips press against his forehead, and his own cheeks heating up in response. Something about it felt long overdue, as if it’d been the thing he’d been longing for the first day they met. When he heard Keith’s footsteps turn away from him, he raised his hand up to the spot, it feeling warm and tingly to the touch. Lance heard the boards of Keith’s bed creak next to him, so he turned away and let sleep overtake him, not before he heard Keith’s voice ring out from across the room.

“Goodnight, Lance.”


	7. Chapter 7

Lance had lost count now of how many days it had been since he left the inside.

There were indents in the wood beside his bed, ones that had been pressed into it by his fingernail. It was a nightly tradition, something he did just before he drifted off to sleep so that the memory of who he once was would stay. About a dozen or so marks were there, no larger than the size of a dime. Lance stopped bothering one sunset to make more, instead turning away from them. They seemed now to be more of a torturous reminder of a nightmare that had passed, one that he no longer had to live through. He wanted to push the images that remained of the time he spent there out of his mind, lock them in darkness and push them to a corner of his mind he never dared to go to. They were being replaced by countless days of joy. From sunrise to sunset, they seemed to carry a brightness with them that they never had before. There was a new type of magic in the air he breathed, the kind that lifted his spirits higher than pixie dust had ever carried his wings off of the ground. It was a wonderland for only the two of them, a place filled with possibilities limited to only the resources they had around them and their imaginations. Lance had learned that creativity was Keith’s strongest attribute, though it wasn’t with him from birth. He asked him about this one day, curious as to how this came to be. 

“Shiro used to leave to get me things a lot.” He said one morning, as they sat next to each other on his bed. “I’d make up stories about the fairies he’d meet or the forest view from my window to make myself feel better. It was a distraction, before I learned that I could listen to the songs of the world the way you can. I guess that’s why I’m creative. I haven’t thought of a story in a long time, though. It seems pointless to try and remember things that will never come back to you, no matter how hard you burn them into your memory.”

Lance found this rather odd. It was unheard of, for fairies to develop talents. They were innate, the magic turning into the desire to be near whichever element they were aligned to. Tinker talents, water talents, garden talents, animal talents, light talents. The list went on longer than Lance could recall, though he knew what they stood for. That was what they were drawn to from the day they arrived, the attachment that paved the path for their life. Lance had remembered his own arrival well. How nerve wracking it had been. The questions that ran through his mind had seemed to be endless. What if the wrong element picked him? What if two elements picked him, or three, or all of them? What if he couldn’t decide which one he was drawn to? What if he just flew away into the trees, so that he didn’t have to choose? It was a lot to spring on someone who was new to the world around them, as lost as a child in the dark. 

Water had decided that Lance would be its new host. He pressed his fingers to the bowl of the crystalline liquid, wondering how it wasn’t cloudy from the muck and algae he figured was in the rivers around him. Instead it sparkled brighter than anything he had ever seen. Lance jumped when the water reached out to him, clinging like damp tendrils onto his dry skin. There was something about it that seemed unnatural, as if the water itself had been engineered and accidentally turned into something self-aware. It had felt like a hand trying to grab ahold of his own, wanting to drag him into the bowl with it. With a nod from the one who had inducted him into this strange world, eyes wide with anticipation, he met the water once more. This time, he accepted its embrace, however bizarre it was to him. He never saw water like that again, making the memory of it one that he tended to dwell upon sparingly.

What bothered him most about Keith’s words was the last bit. It was a lie. At least, to Lance it was. On the days when it was raining, the ones that left him staring out of the window with a longing in his eyes that Keith somehow picked up on from the other side of the room, he’d call out Lance’s name, patting the wooden floor in front of him. Lance would put the curtain back and sit in front of him, eager to see what the story was this time. The rain made him forget about the things that he had to look forward to. It seemed like the only thing that could snap him out of it were the stories. The first one Keith had told him was the most memorable. It was the one that had made him realize that, even though he couldn’t go out in the rain, there was someone who could distract him. Someone who made him feel like there was something to live for, other than the one thing he’d latched onto so dearly. It was why Lance never forgot Keith’s stories, so that he’d never forget the special parts of himself that he shared through them.

Today wasn’t a rainy day. There wasn’t even a single cloud in the sky to threaten them with it. Keith had dragged him out earlier than normal, saying he had a surprise for the two of them. This day in particular felt familiar, almost like it was the same one as when they met. The world around them seemed to be alive, all of the animals and insects chattering about in their language that the two of them would never understand. They didn’t need to. All that mattered to them was that nature was there, thriving and bright, shrouding them from the harshness of the reality that lay just beyond the trees. Sometimes Lance swore that he caught glimpses of his friends faces, eyes boring into his soul. If he shook his head, they’d disappear, leaving him with nothing but the feeling of a pit in his stomach, like something was about to go horribly wrong. 

Lance never told Keith this. There was no reason, he thought, to worry him when there was nothing to worry about. Lance had escaped. He was free to be with Keith, let their relationship progress into whatever it wanted to be. Since that first night he’d come back, there had been no more kisses on the forehead or late night serenades. Lance had no idea what to make of it. He couldn’t even be sure that it had really happened. It was late, he was exhausted, and Keith hadn’t mentioned it. Though since then, Lance had caught him staring at him when he thought he wasn’t looking. Whether it be when he taught Keith how to write, when they sat by the creek and skipped rocks, or when they went out into the woods to see what food they could find, there seemed to be something that Keith wanted to tell Lance. Whenever Lance would look over, he’d turn away, leaving him confused and questioning if he hated him. Lance always shrugged it off, figuring Keith would tell him when he was ready.

Once they arrived at the creek, all Lance could do was gasp. He turned to Keith with his eyes wide in disbelief, who laughed as he saw how shocked he looked. It seemed like this was a dream, something that he had no idea Keith would actually make come true. In between two of the trees, there was a hammock. How Keith had managed to find something sturdy enough to withstand being suspended up in the air, Lance knew not. He’d mentioned once, in their many conversations, how he’d always wanted one. Allura had had one, made from netting spun of spider silk, though she never let Lance on it. She said he was too rough, that he would tear right through it the moment he laid down on it. This one looked more like he would break it, made out of some thin sheet. The material he couldn’t identify but it looked fragile, whatever it was.

“Is this for me?” Lance finally asked, realizing how long he’d been staring at the hammock in awe. “Will it hold my weight?”

“It’s for the both of us so,” Keith flew over to it, Lance racing close behind. He won out in the end, laying on it as Lance crossed his arms and huffed. “If it can hold me, I’m sure it can hold you.”

“Are you sure?” Lance was cautious, holding onto the edge of it just in case Keith somehow fell off. He didn’t even know he was doing it. “I don’t exactly want you getting hurt just because I’m one person too heavy for this thing.”

“It’s fine.” Keith grabbed one of Lance’s arms, pulling him onto his chest with a surprising amount of strength. He couldn’t even process what had happened before Keith had his arm wrapped around his shoulders, staring up at the sky. “I’ll protect us.”

They had spent a long time on their feet yesterday, the two of them. Keith had decided that they needed to stock up on more food, before the chill of autumn kicked in. Lance rather liked the idea of not starving this winter, so he tagged along. Plus, it felt unfair to him to slack off at home while Keith did all of the dirty work for him. Lance was his roommate, an unexpected one at that. He had to work to get the things he needed to survive on his own, or at least his share of them. It felt nice to be here with him, the sun warming their insides. The rising and falling of Keith’s chest lulled Lance into a state of drowsiness. The kind where everything around the two of them felt like heaven, a surreal daydream where he could forget about everything and anything that was weighing on his mind. It was a time of blissful peace, one that Lance never wanted to end. Before he knew it, his eyes were shut. He drifted off to sleep with gentle snores Keith pulled him closer, kissing his head once more.

\------------------------------

By the time Lance woke up, he noticed the sun was almost at its fullest height in the sky. He also realized, to his disappointment, that Keith was no longer beside him. Where his form had been, sturdy and warm, nothing remained but the fabric of the hammock itself. Lance practically fell out of it when he tried to look around for him. The hammock wasn’t in the best view of the creek. It was more to the side of it, surrounded by bright green leaves, dripping with golden sunlight. It was as if this place Keith had picked was meant to be a little alcove, their hideaway that nobody would bother to tear down. They would know whose it was but they wouldn’t bother, since they were too afraid. The thought of it saddened Lance a bit but he didn’t bother to focus on it. What mattered now was keeping himself balanced. He managed to take a hold of a branch that poked out of the tree, steadying himself enough so that he was able to let his feet fall to the ground, snapping a few sticks here and there. Keith’s head poked up from a couple hundred feet away. He looked like he was rushing to finish something, fluttering over to join Lance at his side. 

“I didn’t think you’d wake up so soon!” Keith chuckled, wings as pointy and jagged as ever as he landed. “I wanted to surprise you!”

“Again?” Lance couldn’t believe it. “But you’ve already done enough for me, Keith! Isn’t this a little bit much?”

“Nothing’s too much for my angel.” This made Lance turn away, to conceal the blush that crept over his face. “Why don’t you come and see?”

Keith grabbed his hand, dragging him along to what he’d set up for the two of them. Lance squeezed onto it as they flew together, Keith pulling him to his side. They couldn’t afford injuries out here, in a place where there was no proper medical treatment. While Keith could tend to minor wounds, Lance didn’t know how well he’d fare with gashes or burns, if he’d succumb to any. There was a limit to what they could do out here, the knowledge they possessed. Neither of them wanted to test it so they were careful everywhere they went. It was funny in a way to Lance. He thought of himself as Keith’s protector but lately, he’d become his. Everytime Lance would trip, Keith would be there to help him up, with a smile on his face. Everytime Lance was hungry, Keith would cook for the two of them. It was something that astounded him, the genuine kindness of this fairy whom had only had one other person be kind to him. Maybe that was the reason, Lance figured. Keith didn’t want him to have a reason to hate him, so he made up reasons for him to like him. 

Keith told Lance to close his eyes when they were a little closer, pushing him in front of him so that he had nothing to be afraid of. They were both walking now, the land beneath their leaf slippers feeling bumpy. The world around him was still void of lyrics, the words that were normally obvious underneath the chaos of nature’s sounds. All he could hear was them. The rushing of the water through the creek, the squirrels chomping away on their acorns, the leaves that rustled with the breeze. Lance kept telling him to focus. That, unable to see the world, everything would come to him clearly once more. No matter what he honed in on, to the minutest of sounds, nature wouldn’t let him listen. He wondered if the beating of his heart overcame it all, how it raced, faster paced than ever. Or, if it were something more protective. That the song Lance would hear if he could wouldn’t be a lullaby but rather an omen. It had to be the first. The forest was getting to him, he thought. He would have to be careful to not get scared too easily.

“Open your eyes!” Keith called out to Lance, dropping his hand. “I hope you’re hungry!”

Lance’s stomach growled at the sight of the picnic Keith had set out for the both of them. There were sandwiches, made with the grains Keith kept growing in his garden, as well as some greens from there too, as well as countless types of sweets. Cookies, pies, cakes, all simple yet adorned with the berries they’d worked so tirelessly to collect yesterday. Lance wanted it all. There was no hesitation when he reached out to grab a sandwich, sitting down on the space Keith had left around the edges. It was his blanket, the one he used on his bed. It made Lance brush off the crumbs that he dropped, only for Keith to notice and stop him. He took a bite out of a cookie, letting the remnants dribble out of his mouth and onto the blanket. Lance laughed, nearly choking on his bite of food. They ate and ate until they could eat no more, only a few things left here and there for the two of them.

“That’s why we needed the berries so badly!” Lance laughed after they were finished, wiping his mouth clean with his sleeve. “Thanks for the food, though. You never fail to surprise me with your skills.”

“I’m not that talented, really!” Keith smiled. Lance loved it when he acted like this. It made him seem younger, more alive. “I just wanted to surprise you, that’s all.”

“And you did a great job with it.”

Being done with their feast of a lunch, the two of them moved towards the creek, dangling their legs over the edge of it. It was one of the best feelings on a summer’s day to submerge yourself in the coldness of a body of water. You could feel everything in it. How the movement of it eroded its edges away, the scales of the fish as they swan on busily by. That wasn’t what Lance was focused on right now. He was the one who was stealing glances this time at Keith, rather than the other way around. The way his black hair dangled in his face, brushing softly against his cheek, made Lance want to move it out of the way. To him it looked like it tickled. Especially since he knew how soft his hair was. Whenever they sat next to each other, it almost always found its way to some of his skin. It never failed to make him giggle. Keith’s eyes hadn’t changed the slightest. They were still as star-filled as ever, sparkling brightly as he looked down at the water. Lance loved how he smiled without realizing.He had told him once but Keith didn’t understand. It seemed he was so entranced by everything around him that he wasn’t even aware of himself. All there was, in those eyes, was the beauty around him. Maybe that was where the stars came from. They were memories of the things he didn’t want to forget, the enchanted, magical things that even Lance forgot.

Unconsciously, Lance’s hand drifted into the water too. He started swirling his hand around, not noticing the whirlpool that had begun to form around it. His magic was too powerful for his own good, the other fairies had said. It wasn’t uncommon for Lance to make accidental rainfall, whirlpools, floods. He had learned how to control it, to notice it before the problem got out of hand. Sometimes, like now, he would just take some of the water out of wherever the problem was. It solved it quicker than trying to reverse it which, at a time like this, he didn’t want to do. All Lance wanted to do was surprise Keith with something of his own. He had taken the time out of his day to prepare all of that food and set up the hammock. The least Lance could do was to try and impress him with a trick that he thought would work. Something that would combine their talents to make something cooler than they’d ever done on their own before. 

“Can you make a fireball?” Lance asked, once the water in his hands at calmed down a bit. It was always tricky when he wanted to separate it into two, so that he could hold on in each hand. He’d managed to master the practice but it was difficult nonetheless. “I want to try something.”

“Alright.” Keith rubbed his palms together, letting the orange flame spark between them. It was a practice Lance loved to watch, how it grew and turned into something tangible. Something that could do harm, if wielded the wrong way. “Now what?”

“This.”

Lance lunged forward with his water orb in hand, catching Keith off guard. His magic was explosive, one that he couldn’t control if his emotions were rattled suddenly. Before Lance could react, the fire ball was out of Keith’s hands and onto his chest, bursting like a firework into his skin. Keith tried to summon it back before it finished but it was no use. The damage had been done, though the horrors of it were yet to come. The initial shock of it prevented Lance from feeling any pain. He didn’t dare look down at his shirt. He knew it would be nonexistent, from the smell of burning flesh that filled the air. There was heat all over his torso, extending down his arms, to the tips of his fingers. He had been certain that it would work. If Keith had stayed still, it would’ve worked. If he hadn’t been so jumpy, everything would be fine. In his heart, Lance knew he couldn’t blame him but his mind was frazzled, asking more questions than he could answer. How could he react in a situation like this? What was out here to heal his burns, to prevent them from festering and blistering? 

Water.

Lance dove into it without thinking. He let it engulf him, only to realize with a wave of horror that it only made things worse. They stung and throbbed, pierced his skin like a bed of nails. Underneath the water it felt like he was trapped, stuck in a box with emptiness around him. Maybe this was a nightmare, Lance thought. Maybe if he just swam up to the surface, he’d wake up on the hammock and Keith would be beside him, to make things better. This thought propelled his feet upward, hands aflame as he grasped onto a pair of hands that appeared in the water. Keith was reaching down to pull him out. He had no shame in taking Lance in his arms, carrying him like Lance had seen at weddings, back to their home. His face was flustered and distressed, wings working faster than Lance had ever seen them before. He couldn’t recall much of it but in that moment, he appeared to be a phoenix. 

Only Keith had risen up from the ashes of someone else.

\--------------------------------------

Keith took no chances in tending to Lance.

The remnants of the shirt that he had worn, the one that was so classic to his look, Keith carefully picked out of the charred flesh. It made Lance wince but he had no other choice. There was no telling what would happen if these wounds weren’t cleaned. Even if they were, there was still a chance that what Keith was doing wouldn’t be enough. He had to try anyways, for Lance. He couldn’t let him die, no matter what it took. The state of the burns didn’t appear to be in any sort of good condition. Keith had never seen any before but how raw and tender Lance’s skin looked beneath didn’t reassure him. Shiro had once told him about the degrees of burns, how, the worse they were, the more likely that there was more risk of an infection or more damage to be done internally. Keith was grasping for hope when he was choking on hopelessness. The smell of the destruction of his dreams, somehow fueling his desire to repair them.

The first aid kit Keith had, had little to help in this situation. Instead he used more water, scrubbing away any remnants of Lance’s shirt that he had missed, as well as any extra char that he might have missed. The piece of gauze he used was flimsy but it was enough to cleanse it. At least, he hoped it would be. Lance whimpered and groaned, wailed and moaned, which made Keith be as gentle as possible. He didn’t want Lance to feel more pain than he had to, though he knew a procedure like this was meant to be done when someone was unconscious, if you could call it a procedure. All Keith was doing was preparing him to be wrapped in bandages, which he did tightly but not too much. He knew that the last wrapped he’d done on Lance was firm but this time, it had to be delicate. There was no telling what pressure would do to them. Keith wasn’t a doctor. He didn’t know what to do. So, once he finished, he held Lance’s hand and wiped his brow, kept him company until he was lulled into some sort of sleep. Either that or he passed out from the pain. It took hours, when the sun had set a few hours ago, so Keith went to his own bed and decided to sleep on his own, one question hanging above both of their heads.

What now?

\-------------------------  
Lance woke up with a yelp of pain. 

He tried to use his hand to cover it, so that Keith wouldn’t come rushing over. It didn’t work. The sound of Keith moving in his bed was obvious. Lance wondered if he’d managed to clean up everything by himself alright. It was a thought he knew Keith would yell at him for if he said it out loud. It wasn’t something he should be worried about right now. The fate of the two of them relied upon Lance healing, not straining himself to help out Keith. With a clearer mind now, Lance knew it was his fault. It was an idiotic idea to begin with, trying to make steam rise out of one of his fireballs. Keith had even told him how dangerous they were when he first met, yet he didn’t care. It was the one part of himself that he couldn’t get rid of, no matter how hard he tried.

His lust for adventure.

"Lance?" Keith asked in a whisper to the slowly lightening darkness, voice gravely from the morning. "Are you feeling any better?"

Lance wanted to respond with reassurance, to tell him that his wounds had begun to heal without complications. It seemed that drastic actions came with dire consequences, however. The burns were agonizing, feeling like acid attempting to eat its way through his flesh. The throbbing of them, the bites that seemed never ending, left Lance wincing from their severity. He shivered under the covers, despite the beads of sweat the shined like crystals on his forehead. He pulled the blankets closer around himself. Keith had given up his so that he would be warmer, yet Lance hadn't noticed. This was the only thing he could think of to disguise the pain, the chills, everything that seemed to be going horribly wrong, so that Keith wouldn't worry any longer.

He still came over to his bedside anyway, footsteps padding quietly across the floorboards. Keith knelt down and turned Lance’s face towards his own, close to gasping from the heat of his skin and the expression that he saw. He was clenching his jaw, so that his teeth wouldn't chatter. Lance opened his eyes with great effort, strain evident in the wrinkles that gathered around the edges. The blue that stared back at Keith was filled with loss. That kind of hopeless look someone gets just before they take their last breath, gaze pleading mercy to death. Keith lost all hope in that moment, wanting nothing more than to take Lance home. As much as he thought of him as it, Keith wasn’t Lance’s home. Home was a place that you were safe, anything that could protect you from the harshness this world had to offer. Home was something that could fix you, not break you beyond repair. Home had always been Maple Grove for Lance. How pathetic, Keith thought, that he’d made himself believe that he was his home. He could never be anything close to one.

Though Keith knew that Lance’s dying wish would be for him to be safe.

It was the one promise, mutually known between them, that he would have to break. There was no point in protecting himself when Lance was dying. He was the one who had brought light back into his life, made the air breathable again, without the heaviness of the past weighing on his shoulders. When memories of Shiro crept back into his mind, of the brother he could never replace, his mind now went to Lance instead. The way his eyes seemed to light up when Keith told him stories, latching onto every word. The certainty he had when it came to anything, diving straight into things without regret. The love he knew Lance harbored in his heart for him, the only fairy who'd dared to make friends with him and keep their promise. While Lance wanted Keith to protect the both of them, Keith knew the only option was to protect Lance. That way, he could go back home and live a normal life. That way, he didn't die out here, with only Keith to mourn him. That way, Keith might be able to see him someday again, peeking through the trees at the edge of the forest, longing for him to be in his arms. Yet he would let Lance go, if he could see his smile once more.

“Lance.” Keith’s voice threatened to waver, though he forced it to stay firm. He couldn’t be soft with Lance know, as much as he wanted to be. He had to be harsh with him, so that the truth would settle into his bones. “I have to take you home.”

“How can you,” Lance had to catch his breath. He was worse off than Keith had imagined. “When I’m already there?”

“I’m serious, Lance.” Keith had to fight the tears that threatened to slip out. “You’re going to die out here. I won’t be able to live with myself if it’s my hands that kill you. You might be able to see me again if you let me take you now. We won’t even have to say goodbye.”

“They’re going to take me away from you.” Keith watched as tears started to trickle down Lance’s cheeks. “They won’t let me back here. All I want is for you to be happy. If my life means that much to you, you can take me there. Just don’t ever call it home. There is no home out there for me.”

Keith couldn’t help but weep himself. There were so many things that would be left unsaid. He had wanted to tell Lance the truth. That he loved him, with all of his heart and more. That this feeling of friendship between them had bloomed, on his side, into something more. That today he had planned so that he could tell him, before his fire had swallowed Lance’s torso whole. They were only three words. Three words that he could say right now, if he really wanted to. Three words that hitched in his throat between sobs. There was no point in telling him now. It would only make their inevitable parting harder for Lance. That was one thing he was right about. All Keith wanted was for him to be happy. This way, there would be less suffering on his end. He would be able to heal faster than Keith. There would be some other pretty fairy that would catch Lance’s eye, one that he could keep in his arms forever. All that mattered to Keith was that the light in gaze would never fade, that the adventurous spirit he carried would never die.

Even if it meant sacrificing his own life.

\------------------------

It was a cold night for summer. Though Lance was bundled up in blankets, he shivered more than he had when they’d been inside. It was to be expected. Keith couldn’t measure it but the fever he had wasn’t normal. It left Lance weaker than a wilting flower, body practically limp in his arms. Keith was lucky that his wings were made to be sturdy. If it were anybody else picking up Lance, except Shiro, they wouldn’t have been able to fly the distance that they needed to go. Lance wanted Keith to slow down, to take his time. There was no rush, he said. They might not even be able to save him, anyways. This made Keith’s heard since further. He hadn’t thought about that possibility. Lance could die and he’d never know. There was a slim chance that Keith could hear it in a passing conversation, one at the edge of the woods. It could be the morning after or the year after. There was no certainty when it came to life. It was a variable so fragile that the outcome was always unpredictable. That was why he was trying so hard right now, to make that uncertainty certain. Keith was going to be sure that, as the sun rose, Lance would be saved. That there was no possibility of him taking his last breath or Keith would take his too.

The outside of the forest was foreign to Keith. Lance had told him where to go yet there was an odd feeling around him. It felt like someone was waiting, that they were ready to pounce at him at a moment’s notice. Once he looked up, he saw them. Figures hooded in cloaks, armed with weapons of all kinds. Keith wasn’t surprised. Lance’s friends had spied on them once before. They had forced him out of the safeness of their world, to live with the danger they thought he was. He’d known all along that they weren’t wrong. Monsters can’t change themselves, no matter what they do. They can fall in love, they can make friends, they can lead a normal life but there’s nothing that can erase the damage they can cause. It’s the one thing that labels them as such, the thing that can destroy the beauty that they simply weren’t. So when Keith heard the arrow whizzing through the air, aimed at his shoulder, he was sure to shield Lance from it, letting it stab him right in the back. A few centimeters left of his heart.

Allura lifted her hood off, expression stern and unforgiving. The two boys looked up at her. Keith, with apology and regret, Lance with anger and betrayal. This was worse than before. She had given Keith one chance, the chance to live with Lance happily ever after. He knew what she was thinking. That Keith was the one who had hurt him, despite everything that pointed to the opposite. The bandages that hung from his arms, the blankets that had swadled him moments before. Lance wanted to yell at her, to tell her how wrong she was. He wanted to tell her that Keith loved him, that he cared for him better than she ever could. He was too weak to say anything, so he let himself lay there, turning to wrap his arms around Keith. Lance didn’t care about the blood that pooled around him or the reputation it would give him. He held onto him like the arrow that clung to his ribs, refusing to budge.

“I’ll take it from here boys.” Allura called out to the group, landing beside the two forms. She pried them apart, just so she could drive the arrow into Keith slightly further. “This is what you get for almost killing my friend.”

Keith took it. He didn’t flinch. He bit his lip and refused to complain. He wouldn’t say a word to her. She was someone who looked like she meant business and sounded like it too. This didn’t stop Lance from saying something, from spitting at her feet before he did.

“If you’re going to kill anyone.” Lance had sacrificed the last bit of his energy for that, feeling himself fade out of consciousness. 

“Kill me instead.”


	8. Chapter 8

Lance stirred in an unfamiliar bed.  


Everything around him was soft, like it was meant for royalty. There was a hint of a floral scent to the air. Something light yet easy on the nose. Lance recognized it as rose, mixed with a hint of something he couldn’t quite place. Allura had worn a perfume that was similar in fragrance. It had always drifted in the air about her, like a barrier of pleasantness against the world’s sometimes foul odors. Lance opened his eyes to glance around the room. It was decorated in a variety of pastel pinks and purples. Silky curtains draped from the frame of the bed he was on. Everything reminded him of what he imagined the inside of Allura’s house to be like. The flowers that sat on the dresser, arranged with a critical eye. The dresses that hung from the doorway, acting as a door in their own way. Allura. He snapped out of this trance quickly as he tried to sit up.  


The pain that crashed through his body like the rough waves of the ocean was enough for him to throw the covers back to survey the damage that had been done. His chest looked closer to being healed than it had before. The skin had managed to scab over. While it ached, there was no longer the feeling of teeth biting down into his flesh with their acidic fangs. What was left was a scar, one that stretched the length of his torso and seemed to jump to his hands as well. Where there had once been his naturally tan skin, there were now scars. Ones that were dark and crepey, turning his skin into something that looked more monstrous than human. None of it would ever be the same again. These marks were his everlasting reminder of the mistake that had cost him the most in his lifetime.  


Lance then relived the night he and Keith had laid on the ground, their crumpled forms wanting nothing more than to protect the other. How cruel Allura’s eyes had shone under the stars, with a ferocity he could only compare to that of a lioness. Lance was her cub and anybody who threatened him would be harmed. That was the unspoken agreement between the two of them, as much as Lance wanted to protect himself. It was obvious that Allura had figured Keith was the one who had inflicted these burns, from the lack of mercy she had when she drove the arrow further into his chest, not so much as flinching when his ribs cracked beneath her foot. The stoic face that Keith wore only made the memory burn brighter, almost with more pain than his flames had on Lance’s flesh. There was nothing he could do to stop her but plead for himself to replace Keith.  


The mere thought of where the jagged winged fairy was right then sent thoughts running rampant through his mind once more. Lance knew that they were something more than friends, though he didn’t know what to call it. It was hard for him to understand what they were other than that promise, sworn on his pinky, which looked nothing the same as it had back then. They would die for each other, that much was true. Keith had been willing to bring Lance back into the inside, all while knowing that there was the possibility of himself dying in the process. It was something that sank Lance’s heart deeper into his chest, while his mind tried to probe Keith’s thoughts further. What had he been thinking that night? That he was less important than himself? That he was a monster, one that couldn’t be viewed as otherwise? None of those seemed like what Keith would’ve been thinking.  


Lance knew that all that Keith had cared about that night, however long ago, was taking him home. Lance remembered the tears that had dripped down Keith’s cheeks as he knew that they would part ways forever. He remembered the desperation, his pleas to take him back to this world that felt nightmarish, even if he was in a shelter, shrouded in delicate decor like where he was now. If Lance tried to get up, there was no telling who would be outside the doorway. Allura, Delta, Marina. Any fairy that he had known from his inside life could be waiting out there to suffocate him with their love and affection, trying to get him to forget about the serenity of the outside. Lance had grown to love that about living in a place where seldom fairies roamed.  


There was no fighting, aside from the occasional arguments that arose between himself and Keith every now and then. He could hardly call them arguments, more so misunderstandings. Take the time Lance had accidentally picked the wrong berries, for example. Keith looked down at the basket he held in his hand, filled with ones that were slightly under ripe. He shook his head and dumped them outside, much to Lance’s shock. Once he came back inside, basket empty and ready to be refilled, he answered Lance’s objections with the facts. To any other fairy, his words would’ve seemed harsh. When Keith was serious, Lance had learned that he tended to say things bluntly, without hesitation. It bothered him at times but it grew on him with time, much like every other imperfection Keith had.  


Something about the outside made you realize how flawed the world was yet the beauty that came with it. The few branches on trees that never sprouted leaves, no matter the season. The patches of fur missing on the bodies of woodland rodents. The anxiety that Keith held about messing up, one that ran deep in his bones. If only Shiro had stayed with him, none of this would’ve ever happened. Keith wouldn’t have wanted to be Lance’s friend, if he had someone who felt like family close by to confide in. The bonds between the two of them bore distinct differences but that didn’t matter to Lance. What mattered to him was that this whole ordeal was his fault and he wished that, for a brief moment, they had never met. So that he would still be alive and well, forever a secret that Lance would never find.  


“You’re awake!” A voice interrupted his heartache, bursting through his thoughts with blinding light. “I almost thought that you wouldn’t wake up! How are you feeling? Do your burns look any better?”  


Lance figured it had been Allura’s house which only intensified the hatred he held in his heart for her. He didn’t even dare to look in her direction. To him, it was wrong for her to even consider approaching her with a voice as cheery as it was after what she’d done to Keith. If there had been any hint of love lingering in his heart for her, it was swept away then. Someone like her Lance could never fall for. In his ignorance to the unlucky ones, he had thought that she was a rarity. One of the few in this facade of a wonderland who understood that the conformity and strictness that dictated their daily lives should be broken. Only she was one of their spies, the ones that kept everything from spiraling out of control.  


Lance had been too caught up in work and staring at her that he neglected the obvious signs that he knew now to be strange. How she would schedule activities for him, Pidge and Hunk to do, making it seem like any other gathering groups of fairy friends had. The way she phrased her questions in their conversations, probing for something Lance couldn't give her. The moment he should’ve known was the night after he’d met Keith, though he couldn't put the two together. The promise of a new friendship had blinded him to the observation he usually had, noticing the tiniest of details about conversations or personalities. Mentioning how their sector was safe, how the others should’ve told him, solidified that there was no hope for it to have been a mistake that he saw her that night. Allura had betrayed him.  


And now, she was trying to get him to forget about Keith.  


“Lance.” She tried to grab onto his wrist, only to reach for his hand instead. Lance yelped and hid under the covers, regretting it as the sickly floral scent began to overtake his senses, enveloping him in a heavy mixture of flowers he knew to be stuffed in the mattress. “I can’t have you hiding from me when I need to heal you.”  


Though the promise of a painless body made Lance second guess his persistence, he wouldn’t break it then. So he bit down on his lip to distract from the pain that hiding himself away from Allura had caused and stayed silent. You shouldn’t have been able to heal anybody if you hurt them before. Lance realized then that she had taken off the ones that Keith had wrapped around him, in that way that always felt just right. The one tie that they had left, connecting the living to the dead, had been severed right underneath of his nose. Lance had no tears to shed within himself any longer. There was only rage to be had, one that burned brighter and hotter with every inconsideration Allura threw in his direction.  


“I should’ve expected this, huh?” She sighed, sitting next to his legs on the edge of the bed. Lance moved them as soon as she felt her brushing against them. “That you would hate me. There isn’t much I can tell you that would make you like me. I did what I had to do to protect you. They were going to kill the both of you otherwise.”  


“So that means that it was justified to kill Keith?” Lance mumbled, bitterness ever present in every word. “To not ask how I got these burns and assume that it was all his fault because they were burns in the first place?”  


“That’s not what I meant.” Allura tried to pull the covers from underneath of him but they wouldn’t budge. “There wasn’t enough time.”  


“There wasn’t enough time?” Lance laughed, snapping back at her faster than a snake from a field of grass. “If you had spent enough time paying attention, you would’ve noticed that Keith was cradling me in his arms. Do you know why? Because he washed my wounds and bandaged me up. He barely slept because he was worried about me. He took me to you because there were no other options, not because I asked to come back here.”  


“Aren’t you happy to see me again?”  


There was something about how weak this was, how on the verge of breaking her voice sounded, that made Lance almost feel sorry for her. Almost. Every word she was telling him, every tone to her voice, could have easily been faked. There was no way of telling what was genuine and what was an act to pull him back into her arms, like she had done for him when they used to spend time together. There were days where Lance refused to move from his secluded area in the forest, just beyond where his work laid. Allura was the one who came to convince him to leave or see what was wrong, if Marina or Delta or any of the other water talents couldn’t. She would let him rest his head on her shoulder and tell him that their work would start easing up soon, as the water rushed across their ankles while the insects hummed away.  


There used to be days where he would long for when things between them were as simple as that. Back when he loved her and his emotions weren’t a whirlwind of surprises and confusion. That was part of the reason why he stayed by the riverside. His heart longed for affection, for someone to open up to. Allura was that person for a while. They would share their grievances over tea or cake or whatever they felt like. They would laugh and chat or cry and yell. Whatever emotions they needed to let go of that day, they did so with each other. That was, until she started with the questions. The ones that seemed to invade every inch of privacy he had. Unlike the Allura he knew before, the one who would accept the tremendous power he possessed, this one prodded at it. The fairy he knew those years ago was dead to the world, replaced by something of a monster that sat near him now.  


“I would’ve been happy to see you if you hadn’t killed Keith.”  


Lance’s voice was solid and persistent. He would take this grudge to his grave and then some. That was a part of the reason why he was reluctant to let Allura heal him. With Keith gone, Lance had nobody he could trust. There would be nobody to tell him stories on rainy days, to distract him from the droplets that had sapped his wings’ strength away. There would be no more lullabies or songs, sung late at night when he couldn't sleep. The orbs of fire that Lance had admired for so long he would see no more. Keith’s flames would forever light up the space in Lance’s heart reserved just for him, the only proof that his life was not lived in vain.  


“Alright.” Allura pulled back the covers after a few moments of silence, catching Lance off guard. “I’m healing those burns whether you like it or not. I don’t care if you hate me. I don’t care if you didn’t want to come out here. You’re staying and I’m taking away the last of the pain.”  


Lance couldn’t object before he felt a strange sensation against his skin. It was similar to tingling but not quite. It felt as if she were sucking the discomfort from the burns right from out of his skin, finalizing the state of them forever scarring his skin. He had never known that she possessed this power. In this generation of fairies, anyone who could heal was highly sought after, as the heavy workload they were being given was tearing them apart. There wasn’t a day that went by that there wasn’t the rumor of someone blinding themselves as a light talent or someone getting bitten by a wild animal as an animal talent. He wondered if that’s why she seldom allowed visitors. So that she could heal the wounded without being accused of holding tremendous power.  


When she was done with her magic, Lance couldn’t help but feel a sudden burst of energy, like there had been caffeine woven in with that spell. He could sit up now with no fear of anything hurting, though from a glance, the scars were as bad as they had been when he’d woken up earlier. There was no amount of magic that could erase mistakes, no matter if they be physical or emotional. There were types of it out there that could make your ailments stop aching, heal your broken heart for a few moments. Lance had even heard rumors of fairies who could freeze time, under everybody else’s nose. It made him wonder if there was anything else to her magic that Allura was hiding from him, bits of the impossible that she could make come true with the flick of her wrist.  


“How long have you been able to do that?” He asked, pulling the covers over his chest. “The healing, I mean.”  


“For as long as I’ve been able to fly.” Allura responded, tapping her hand against the wooden frame at the foot of the bed. “The only reason I found out was because someone I know fell injured unexpectedly and there was no time to take him to the hospital so I did what I had to do.”  


Lance nodded. He wondered who this friend of hers was. It couldn’t have been Hunk. He would’ve at least told Lance that he had been injured at some point, even if he had to leave out the detail of Allura’s magic. Coran wasn’t exactly what he considered to be a friend of Allura’s and, if they happened to be working together in the group that kept everything in check, there was no way that he could’ve been this man. He would’ve swept her away one night without warning, taking her to where Lance knew not. It bothered him that he couldn’t figure it out but now wasn’t the time to question her. There was no telling what she’d say if he did.  


For a moment, Lance thought about reporting it. To get his revenge for what she’d done to Keith in an indirect way. It wouldn’t have been that hard. All he had to do was find Coran or someone who was overly concerned with things like that and tell them. Then she would be hauled off into the darkness the same way as that girl had been. The fear he’d felt from witnessing it then was enough to dismiss the thought before it grew out of proportion. Not only that but there was Keith too. He wouldn’t have ever done that to anybody, no matter how bad they’d hurt him. He would’ve understood their side, not bothered to hurt them because of it. Which was why Lance decided to try his best to talk to Allura, as much as it left a bad taste in this mouth.  


“Do you want to go and sit outside?” Allura asked. Her voice was hopeful but quiet, like she felt that Lance would snap if she spoke any louder. “It’s a bit cold out but you can bring the blanket.”  


“Fresh air sounds nice right about now.” Lance yawned as he stood up and stretched, easing any tenseness out of his joints. “Just how much perfume do you use exactly?”  


Allura shot him a playful glare before shaking her head. While Lance wrapped the covers around his shoulders, she stood in the doorway. This whole time they had been together, there had been the vibe to her that she was hiding something. Lance couldn’t place his finger on exactly what she’d have to hide but it was rare for her to let him into his house. Almost nobody was allowed in her house, unless the circumstances called for it. Lance remembered a time where it hadn’t been like that. A time when Allura had hosted gatherings every weekend or so, however small they may have been. It didn’t last long. Only a year or so but there had been something lighter to her back then. A heart that had been full and forgiving, turned to something much more closed off and protective.  


She led him through the front door, after they’d walked through the kitchen and living space. Everything in her house looked like it was cleaned constantly. The floors, the counters, the chairs. There wasn’t a speck of dust that his eyes could spot. There was one thing that he found odd. On the table she ate at, there were two place settings. Crumbs were gathered on the surfaces of each plate, while a spoon sat perched across the mouth of one of the cups. Lance figured that they had been settings used for breakfast and then lunch and that she’d forgotten to clean up both of them. How else could he explain it when there was no one else in her house but him?  


The two of them found a spot just outside her doorstep, underneath the final shade of a tree. It was nearing twilight once more, leading Lance to believe he’d been asleep a lot longer than a few hours. Had it been days? Weeks? Months? What had they done to Keith in that time? Where did they bury his body, if at all? Was there a chance that Lance could say his final goodbye to Keith if there was a grave he could visit? There were things that had been weighing on his mind in his restless sleep throughout this time. Nightmares where he would reach his arms out to Keith, only for his form to disintegrate into ashes. The wind would sweep the very remnants of his form into the sky as Lance managed to grab only a handful of what Keith had been reduced to. There were others in which Lance had to sit and watch as they tortured Keith for hours on end. Cutting his wings, pulling his teeth. Anything to illicit agony from him, they did.  


No longer did it feel like summer outside. The chill of autumn was pressing in on Maple Grove, a precursor to the harsh winter he knew was to come. The creatures who normally chattered about seemed quiet that night. Everything felt unsettling to Lance when it shouldn’t have been. Animals were preparing themselves for hibernation throughout the winter. Songbirds would no longer sing until the thawing of the world in the spring. It was the way the world worked yet somehow, summer had felt endless when he and Keith had spent time together. It wasn’t one of those cliches where the feeling of the season had remained. Once they ventured further and further towards the boundaries of the dead trees, the air took on a much more humid feel. The stickiness and heat felt like the summer days he was used to, tricking Lance’s mind into believing that he could hold onto the season for a lifetime.  


“I’m sure you have questions.” Allura said this in the midst of Lance’s thoughts, as she accelerated the growth of patches of grass here and there. She always loved to make it even, even back then. “And I’m not going to stop you from asking them. Just know that there are some things I’m not allowed to speak about.”  


“Fair enough.” Lance dropped the rock he didn’t know he’d picked up, letting it roll through the grass. “What I’m most curious about is why you joined them? You know that there were other ways of dealing with this. You could’ve intercepted me at the woods or something! You could’ve asked Marina and Delta to give me more work! Why them? Why the ones who only want to hurt?”  


“Isn’t it obvious?” Her voice fell, broken from the words Lance had spat at her. “There was no other way I could protect you. You’ve always been full of energy and curiosity that I know would get you hurt. There are dangers in this world that only I could tell you. Ones that could earn you a punishment worse than death. Without joining them, I was defenseless in doing anything to stop you. I don’t believe that fairies born of darkness are evil. In fact, I know that they aren’t.”  


“How could you when you’ve never met one?” Lance snapped at her, managing his frustration as best as he could. “How would you even know what they’re like?”  


“I know I called him a monster.” She looked out at the horizon, trying to avoid Lance’s accusing eyes. “I know I told you stories of how unstable they could be around other fairies. When he brought you home injured that night, I-”  


“You figured that he was the one who had hurt me, didn’t you?”  


“Yes.” The word hung between the two of them for a moment, Lance trying to pretend that it didn’t exist while Allura tried to push it to him. “All of us did. We were out investigating a report of unstable magic by some fairy when we saw the two of you. I lost all self control when I saw you like that but I get the feeling there’s more to your side of the story. I know you told me that it was his idea to bring you here so that you could get the help that you needed but why did you get those burns in the first place?”  


Lance knew at some point he was going to have to tell her the story. One that belonged on the pages of a storybook, as a warning to those fairies as naive and excitable as himself. While he’d once questioned the morals behind telling the story of Tinkerbell, he realized now that they were trying to protect the ones like him. The ones who would run head first into danger without realizing that it would hurt them. The ones that wanted to make the unknown, known, at any cost it would take. The cats who would be killed by their own curiosity, were they not put in their place by cautionary tales or their own mistakes. Lance didn’t fall into either of those categories. There was nothing that could kill the adventurous spirit that raged beneath his skin. No matter how grim things got, it still perked up at the hint of anything different and new. And if it didn’t, Lance would keep it alive.  


For all the adventures he and Keith would never go on together.  


“It was a stupid mistake.” Lance mumbled, blinking the tears from his eyes he hadn’t realized were there. “Keith had set up a hammock in the trees for me and then a picnic for when I woke up. I was in shock and impressed since it was the first time he’d done anything like that. I wanted to surprise him and show what our magic could do together, so I told him to make a fire orb while I made two water ones. I just wanted to show off, I think, but he was so scared that when I jumped at him, he sent the fireball flying. I happened to be in its path. I should’ve known that he would’ve been scared but it didn’t matter. I still don’t know how I was that dumb.”  


“You weren’t being dumb, Lance.” Allura turned to face him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Can I ask you something?”  


“Anything.”  


“Do you remember when we would sit in my garden on nights like this?”  


Lance did. He remembered them well. She would tend to her plants with the careful eye and gentle hand she always did, being as careful as ever to make sure that she didn’t overdo anything. Her fingertips would determine how high they sprouted or how healthy the buds grew. One little slip up and the petals of flowers would petrify and crumble, while berries would shrivel up and rot. Lance would always try to copy her, willing himself to imagine that his power was her’s, focusing only on the vegetation in front of him. She would always laugh as he pressed his eyes shut, scrunching his face up in ways that he only did when he made a fool of himself around her. They were memories that felt bittersweet now, though they’d meant the world to him then.  


“How could I forget?” Lance forced a laugh. “I was in love.”  


“I’m thinking that maybe, your bond with Keith is something more like that.” Allura smiled sadly at him. “Like love.”  


Love. The word had come to Lance before. On nights when he longed for Keith to press his lips against his forehead once more or days when Lance wanted to grab onto his hand as they walked through the woods. He’d dismissed it then, trying to deny the way his heartbeat rose whenever Keith got close. It was the scariest thing that Lance could think about happening then. If he fell in love with Keith, there was no telling what his reaction would be. He could have sent him back to the inside crying, with a broken heart and empty arms. He could have never seen him again, stuck with the task of finding someone on the inside as unique as Keith, when he knew there would be nobody that could ever compare to him. Lance could have lost the one fairy who made his curiosity soar higher than any other he’d met before. Love was complicated. It was confusing and hopeful. Nothing that Lance could have between the two of them.  


The more Lance thought about it, the more it made sense. The feelings he’d had when he’d been in love with Allura were all the same when he had been with Keith. How defensive he got when anybody tried to hurt them, even if it was just a joke. The way he thought their eyes sparkled, each unique and different from any other fairy. How he tossed aside all common sense just to try and be the center of their attention, to impress them more than they’d impressed himself. The longing to have them with him at all times, even if it was impossible. There were unlimited parallels that he could draw, yet he’d ignored every single one. Love really could blind you in ways you never expected. It was a risk, a chance that could only be taken a certain number of times in life. When you had it, Lance realized, that uncertainty was worth the risk. Even if Keith had sent Lance home crying, even if he hadn’t felt the same way, there was a chance that he would still be alive then.  


Which meant more than them ending up happily ever after.  


“What happens to fairies when they die?”  


Lance asked this question before he could realize how hard it would be for Allura to answer. She hesitated for a moment, looking down at her hands instead. Lance could see how he had loved her once. In the dimming light of the sunset, her skin gained this glow to it that he’d only seen in one other fairy. When she looked over at him once more, the blue in her eyes reflecting the oranges and reds of the horizon, it reminded Lance of the first time he’d wandered into the forest, that fateful afternoon. It made the remnants of his flames burn brighter in his soul. Instead of burning with regrets, they burned with love. The same love that made its presence clear on his skin, in scars that would never heal. Not once would he be able to look at himself without Keith, for there was always a part of him with him.  


“They turn to pixie dust.” Allura’s head was bowed. Lance noticed tears sparkling as they hit the ground, ones that were a rude awakening to her. “Why?”  


“What do you think Keith turned into?”  


“You won’t have to find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Over five thousand words! Sorry the update was so slow this time. I was having a bit of a writer's slump but I won't leave you hanging with next chapter! Also, I'd pay attention to the last line if I were you. It might've been said by someone that you least expected. ;)  
> With that being said, it was recently A Summer's Lullaby's third month anniversary of being posted and I couldn't be more proud. Thank you all for being so supportive and leaving kudos and comments. I appreciate every single one I get and I don't think I give you nearly enough of what you deserve. You're all insanely awesome and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you.  
> I'll see you soon with chapter nine. I love you all and I hope you have lovely days! <3


	9. Chapter 9

Lance jumped at the voice behind him.

For a split second, he had faked himself out into believing that it was Keith. This voice couldn’t have been further from his. Though it was male, there was a seriousness to it, one that added maturity and age beyond that of anyone Lance had ever known. Keith’s voice had crackled and snapped, like the fire that he could light at the snap of his fingers. Allura’s eyes had widened the moment the mysterious man had spoken, excusing herself to a hushed argument that Lance assumed to have been taken back inside her house. There was no way he could listen in on them from where he was sat, legs dangling over the edge of her doorstep as the nocturnal creatures arose for the evening. Lance tried to focus on the trees, on the grass, on anything other than the quiet words of the stranger and the traitor behind him, though he couldn’t.

Soon enough, Lance found himself pressing his ear against the outside of her house. It was rough against his cheek, bits of the vines that grew up it digging into his skin. Their argument had dulled down into a rhythmic conversation. Though it was clearer now, nothing that they said made any sense to Lance. It came to him as muddled garble, sounds that could be taken in any way that his mind wished. Was there a chance that Keith was still alive? Was that why Allura had stopped this stranger from speaking, so that he wouldn’t reveal the truth about his whereabouts? They could’ve been answering all of his questions and Lance would never know. He sat there for a few minutes longer, letting himself succumb to the anxious agony that built up in his chest as time worse on. Eventually Lance couldn’t stand it any longer so he slumped down against the wall, letting himself admire the beauty around him.

As the sky darkened, the stars arose, dotting its normally blemish free face with an array of galactic freckles. It was one of the things that he would miss the most about being on the inside. Outside, you had all of the time in the world to spend. There was no worry about being late to work or offending a friend by being a few minutes too late to an activity the two of you had been planning for months. Nature had no constraints on anything, only a routine it followed that never changed. Seasons would come and go, life would move on but the sunrise would always shine its light down on the world again. It was something that Lance had took for granted out there, the ability to see it every morning with Keith. They would fly to the highest branches of the sturdiest trees that they could find, sitting with their fingertips inches apart.

The amount of times Lance had thought about taking Keith’s hand in his own was a number that he’d lost track of. Looking down at it now, pressed into the panels of wood Allura’s house sat atop, he knew it wouldn’t feel the same. Where his skin had once been soft and supple, the perfect hand to hold, it was now mutilated. Turning it over, there were no lines to been seen in his palm. Either they’d been burned off forever or they were hidden under the thick layer of scars and scabs that coated it. There was a part of Lance that wanted to fly off then and find where Allura had dumped his body. No doubt it would be crawling with maggots and flies, surrounded by a barrier of decay. But Lance would give anything if he could’ve seen Keith smile, one more time.

“Lance?” Allura asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. It was hard to see where she stood but in the starlight, he could just make out her silhouette. Lance could tell that she needed a moment to readjust too, kneeling down next to him so that she could be quieter than before. “Can you promise me something?”

He hesitated. There were only so many promises that someone could make in their life. Lance had spent a fair amount on her and his friends in the past. They were ones that kept him silent, from exposing himself for his strength that could have become his ultimate downfall. Many of them remained unbroken. Lance never had it in him to break a promise unless it cost the happiness of someone else. These were the invisible strings that refused to let him go, tethering him to his fairy friends from the inside. They remained present in his mind as a choir of echoes, comprised of voices, lowered down to hushed whispers. No matter how hard he tried to push them out, they forced their way back in, bringing along with them bitterness and regret.

If Lance said anything other than yes to Allura, he knew the consequences could be dire. What she could have to tell him could be anything. The growing suspicion that this ordeal was all over the state of Keith overtook any rationality Lance may have had left. There wasn’t much time he could spend questioning it. Yes meant that there was no going back. That whatever she told him would remain tucked into the deepest crevice of his mind, one that had the lowest chance of being cracked open for information. It was a practice he’d trained himself in just to be on the safe side. In the times they were living in now, with the secrets that were being kept from all of fairykind, there was no telling who would want to harm Lance for the information that he possessed. For the magic that he possessed. He couldn’t bring himself to say the world so he nodded in reply. Allura smiled as she hoisted him off of the ground, helping to make sure the covers he’d brought out stayed around his bare chest, just as he started to hear a melody rise up out of the twilight.

The place settings that had sat atop her table were now cleared away. It added to the eerie emptiness of it all, a place nearly void of personal belongings. Allura knew how to decorate to compensate for this, that much was true. Where the wall met the floor, a border of white and yellow blossoms was painted. Light fixtures hung here and there, illuminated with the help of extra pixie dust. A vase sat in the middle of the wooden surface now, filled with a selection of yellow and orange blooms. Preparation for the autumn festival, Lance assumed. Every year that he’d known her, Allura had been put in charge as the head of the decoration committee when it came to any major event. It was no wonder. Her eye for pairing colors together, contrasting them all while uniting them with the essence of the season, was a talent that was envied in the realm of garden fairies. He had witnessed their jealousy in person on multiple occasions, though it never got to her. She seemed to be able to keep her head high even in the most dire of situations.

“I think that you should sit down for this.” Allura gestured to the open chairs by the dining table. Lance took a seat in one of them, tapping his foot against one of its legs. “Don’t freak but there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

There was nothing she could’ve said that could’ve puzzled Lance more than that. He already knew Keith so it wasn’t like he could meet him again. Unless Allura had resurrected him from the dead and turned him into something that wasn’t even remotely like the person Lance had fallen in love with. How a thought like that had popped into his head, he had no idea, but it wouldn’t leave him alone. He tried to distract himself with one of the flowers in the center, pulling one with a particularly thick stem out of the vase. It felt nice to twirl it in between his fingers. It was almost as if the moisture that had gathered on the sides of it gave just the perfect amount of life back into his dried out skin. There was a hint of pain as he did this but what mattered was how normal his skin was starting to feel again. Maybe that was all Lance needed to heal after all. Water.

“Are you ready?” Allura asked, head poking out of the doorway. What room it lead to, Lance didn’t know. “I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He replied, placing the flower on the table as he pulled the covers closer around him. It felt wrong to show off his scars to the world. It wasn’t because they were embarrassing or gross or anything. They felt like a bond between him and Keith that no one else deserved to see but the two of them. 

If Keith could ever see it, that was.

Allura stepped out, motioning to the person behind her to follow. There was his voice again, in such a whisper that any words Lance thought that he heard he could only believe to be wrong. Keith was one of these said words. He let out a big sigh at this, burying his head in his hands. It was going to take some getting used to, referring to Keith as a past memory rather than a living being. Maybe with meeting this man, Lance wouldn’t have to fear losing the memories he cherished more than anything. Maybe things would go back to the way that they were or as close to that as they could be. 

“It’s alright.” She smiled at him, picking up on his sigh as a sign of his nerves, though he couldn’t see it. “Lance is at the table.”

As the figure emerged at the doorway and Lance pulled up his head, a feeling began to overcome him that he couldn’t understand. This fairy, with a patch of white hair in the front of a head of black, was without a doubt Shiro. Next to Allura, this creature did look like a monster. Where her features were delicate and petite, giving off the spitting image of the creatures drawn in the few picture books that had been dropped at the edges of their land only those designated to do so roamed, his were blunt. From his jawline to the intensity of his stare, there was nothing about him that Lance could identify as comforting. The way that his wings shone under the light gave off an unnerving vibe, reflecting a color darker than Keith’s had ever been. Even the way his figure was built, with muscles accentuated by the way the sleeves of his dark shirt frayed around them, made him seem unapproachable. 

Lance looked past all of this with a facade of confidence, letting his fear bubble up inside of him along with the mysterious feeling he couldn’t quite place. There was an element of fire to it, one that burned with the desire to jump from his seat and claw at Shiro. To tell him how lost Keith was without him, how Lance was the one to save him when it should’ve been him. Lance wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t been blind the entire time that he’d spent with Keith to be oblivious to the bond that the two of them had shared before he’d abandoned him. They were family. Family doesn’t walk out one day and never come back, if they promised they would be soon. Family keeps their promises, no matter how hard they might be. Family sticks together through thick and thin and worries about the wellbeing of everyone in it. Keith had still thought of Shiro as family at the end.

Though Lance would never let himself get that close.

“I’m assuming that you know who I am?” Shiro laughed, letting himself fly over to Lance’s side. He held out his hand for him to shake, seeming eager to make some sort of friendship between the two of them. Lance took it reluctantly, noticing as he did the strange lines that seemed to decorate his arm like some sort of translucent cobweb. Almost like veins. There was a scar that ran across his nose, one that was deeper than those on his forearm, looking as if it hadn’t quite healed yet. “In case you don’t, I’m Shiro.”

“Lance.” The water fairy responded, not once bothering to stand from where he sat. This didn’t phase the fairy before him, who took the empty seat across from him. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Silence overcame the two of them. It wouldn’t have been awkward if it hadn’t been for Allura, whom Shiro had turned to, mouthing advice to him on what to say next. Lance couldn’t do anything but groan. The suspense of it all had finally taken a toll on his patience, reducing it to nothing more than a pebble of what was usually a boulder. There were too many questions that needed answers. How long had he been here with Allura? Was Keith alive and, if so, where were they hiding him? If Keith really was gone, was Shiro there to apologize? To try and make amends with Keith through the person who knew him closest at his death? There was one thing, above the questions, that Lance knew for certain. There was no way in Pixie Hollow that he was saying more than he had to.

“I’m sure you’ve got a lot on your mind.” Shiro finally understood from all of Allura’s wild gestures and mouthed words. Though he seemed to take on a nature entirely different before. It was that of a leader, one that was born to train the weak to turn them into the strong. It was one thing that Lance could admire about him, amongst the long list of things he despised. “And I’m not sure where exactly to start when it comes to explanations. But I will answer anything you ask me honestly. That I can assure you.”

“Then for starters, I’d like to know this.” Lance was biting back his words at this point, resisting all urges to shout all of the things he’d longed to tell Shiro, formed from his many conversations with Keith about him. “What did you mean out there? Do you know where Keith is?”

“Yes.” Lance almost fell out of his chair at this one word, holding onto the table out of shock. Or anger. It was hard for him to distinguish between the two at this point, when there was barely any trust to be found in this world anymore. “I meant what I said. Keith isn’t going to die. For right now, at least. There’s no telling what will happen if we’re found out.”

“We’re?”

It was Shiro’s turn to sigh. The situation Lance had put the four of them in seemed to be more complicated than he had realized. It seemed that he hadn’t been the only one to hide a secret this whole time. To keep a promise while protecting someone close to them, someone they knew would be taken away from them in the blink of an eye, if they made so much as one mistake. Everything was starting to piece itself together in Lance’s head. The smallest actions became the biggest, making more sense than they had before. There were things that before that Lance would’ve dismissed as Allura being Allura. The angry passion that threatened to explode the night she brought Pidge and Hunk to his house. The face that she refused to let Lance inside of her house, no matter how badly he wanted to go inside. Even her protectiveness over him all made sense. This was the situation she was trying to prevent, to protect Shiro for herself.

“It seems like you’ve been able to put two and two together quite fast, huh?” Shiro asked, snapping Lance out of his thoughts. “I’ve been living here for a while now. I can’t remember exactly how long but I know it was too long for him. Allura’s been quite kind to me, though.”

At this, the garden talent’s cheeks flushed, her turning away to avoid more embarrassment than she deemed necessary for herself. Lance questioned her true motivation for joining the black hooded fairies in their quest to protect the peace they thought they had. Any fairy who was whisked away in the middle of the night for magic of a power higher than those around them had ever seen had come face to face with the side of Allura that struck fear in even his own heart. It wasn’t a trait that he could pinpoint as being directly villainous, like a menacing laugh or a merciless glare.It was how easily she was able to snap back into that upbeat, confident woman that seemed to reserve mercy for every creature she came across. That was why Lance was so hesitant to stay. There was no telling when she would flip back into the creature she had been the night that she drove the arrow tip further into Keith’s chest. It was madness that possessed her, a desire to protect the two people she cared about above all else.

No matter the consequences.

“You two seem awfully close to each other.” Lance teased, knowing clearly what their relationship was. “Care to tell me how exactly that happened?”

“I’ll explain this one.” Allura said, preventing Shiro from speaking before her. “When Shiro went out to explore, he hadn’t taken into account just how far he was going. It was nightfall and I happened to hear him groaning. He was hiding behind a tree, trying to die in peace. They had slashed a gash right across his nose and managed to rip his arm off, right at the shoulder. I took him back to my place and, with great effort, healed him. That was when I decided to join Coran in protecting our kind from things that would only hurt us. I don’t believe in what they stand for. I frankly think it’s ridiculous but all I wanted was to keep Shiro safe, as well as you. You must know that you are always on my mind. I’m sorry for all of this. The heart wants what it wants and can’t help the stupid things it does for love. I’m sure you know that better than anyone.”

“I am pretty stupid when it comes to flirting, aren’t I?” Lance grinned, though on the inside, it felt like a frown. “I know where you’re coming from Allura. I don’t know if I can forgive you but I can at least understand.”

Understanding was the best he could do in either of their cases. Forgiveness was forever going to be out of the question. Both of them had caused hurt beyond what they would ever feel in their lives, all to protect the happiness they’d managed to find in each other. It was almost hypocritical for Lance to judge them in this way but he didn’t care. There was a major difference between the two love stories that were unfolding in this world, unknown to passing eyes. One of them was selfish. Not only did it put their own lives in jeopardy, but the ones closest to them as well. It forced them to do things out of self preservation, not once thinking of the happiness of others. One of them was brave. Lance had stayed with Keith against all odds. He had flown back into the forest every single day until they threatened to go after Keith. Then, Lance stayed to protect him. Because at the end of the day, that’s love. Risking it all to protect someone that means more than they world to you. They give you back a piece of yourself that you never knew was missing. Only when that void is filled does the feeling of it become addictive.

That was what caused their stupid mistakes in the first place, wasn’t it?  
“If you want, Keith’s awake.” Shiro offered this as a sort of truce. “I know he’d love to talk to you. He hasn’t stopped talking about you since he’s woken up.”

“Show me the way.”

The two of them flew up from the table, passing through doorways covered with gauzy curtains into a room Lance couldn’t even begin to imagine how they’d squeezed into Allura’s house. It was small, only big enough to fit a bed and a chair next to it. The lighting inside was dim. It almost felt medical, in a way. With such a simple set up, Lance thought that it would be an ideal place to heal those that needed privacy as they did. Or who needed to be hidden from the outside, sheltered in this tiny corner of this maze. Despite everything, Lance could see the way Keith’s eyes lit up the moment they met his own. It was a look he would never forget, tears and all. That state of ecstacy, caused by him. He was the reason that Keith was crying with joy, pulling Lance in for one of the strongest hugs he’d ever felt. 

“I’m not going to let you go this time.” Keith sniffled, keeping his grip tight despite the minutes that passed. In this time, Shiro had taken his leave, flying off to stay with Allura. “I won’t ever let go of you again.”

“Neither will I.” Lance rubbed his back, doing his best to assure Keith that this was real. That neither of them were dreaming up this reunion. “I’ll protect you. I’ll stop making stupid mistakes and become who you need me to be. I’ll be your shield if you’ll be my archer.”

“Maybe no arrows for a while.” Keith laughed, wiping the tears away as he reluctantly broke their embrace. “But I don’t deserve this. Monsters are the creatures that enhance all of the beauty in this world, not intertwine with it.”

Lance took this opportunity to survey the damage done to the fairy of flames. There were slight bags under his eyes from these past sleepless nights, accentuating the desperation of the hope in his eyes. His dark hair was matted and tangled from the tossing and turning he was certain Keith had done, similar to the way his own brown locks knotted. Then Lance let his gaze fall lower on Keith’s body. To his chest. The scar there was close in depth and coloring to Shiro’s, though its width was smaller. It was sort of funny to him how such a seemingly insignificant scar could’ve caused Keith’s death. One wound could bring down even the strongest of soldiers. Something Lance thought was beyond unfair. For their strength, they were awarded with scars. For they bravery, they got nothing but pain. There was nothing to be gained out of it but suffering. Yet they kept on fighting, living, breathing. Defying the odds predetermined for them.

“Even the kindest creatures in this world have their share of darkness." Lance reassured Keith. His hand was inching its way towards the scar on his chest, though he forced his fingers back. He wasn’t sure how good of a healing job had been done on the wound and he wasn’t about to risk hurting him then. “Allura, Pidge, Hunk. There isn’t anyone who can escape it. Anxiety, irritability, cruelness. Some darkness is lighter than others and you have the lighter end of it.”

“Then why did I hurt you?” Keith turned his face away, trying to hide the tears Lance knew to be slipping away from him without his consent. “Why couldn’t I control myself when I should’ve?”

“Because it wasn’t your fault.” Lance sighed, taking one of Keith’s hands in his own. “It was mine. I was the one who ambushed you with no warning. I was the one who was selfish for wanting to surprise you. There isn’t anything about you that could make you a monster.”

“My powers.”

“They’re what make you beautiful.” Lance ran his fingers across the soft outside of Keith’s hand, worried that his own felt like sandpaper. He mentally thanked Allura for saving him, even if she inflicted the wound upon him herself. “You have a sort of magic that some would kill to have. The only reason they fear and hate you is because they think that you’ll lash out at them out of fear, like Shiro. Your magic is something that drew me to you. Isn’t that what matters about this anyways?”

“You make a good point.”

Something about the mention of Shiro’s name made Keith’s face fall. Lance guessed that their reunion had been less than the excitement he had fantasized about in his head. He could almost feel how Shiro had changed, through the memories Lance had told him. Though he was warm and welcoming, the spitting image in presentation of a fairy king, Lance couldn’t shake this uneasiness he had felt when they had spoken. From what Keith had told him, Lance had expected someone whose every move felt natural. Not a single fake thing about him, with one of those smiles that felt like a teacher looking down at their pupil, boosting your confidence, if only just for a little while. 

“Does something about Shiro seem strange to you?” Keith asked, as if he’d read Lance’s mind. “I don’t know if it’s just me but he seems to be acting a bit stiff.”

“I see it as being more fake than strict.” Lance replied with his honesty. “I think he was worried about losing you. I’m sure it’s hard for him to keep himself together when he must blame himself for this happening.”

“I wish he didn’t.” Keith tucked a piece of hair behind his ear, revealing a smooth cheek beneath of it. Lance was tempted to press his lips against it but he resisted the urge. It wasn’t fair to make a move on him when he was in a state like this. “I don’t think any of this was a mistake. Do you?”

Lance couldn’t help but pause to think about this. It wasn’t a mistake that they had met. That was what Keith was asking him and yet Lance thought of it as something else. Was it a mistake that they’d gotten as close as they had? Was it a mistake that Lance had fallen in love without realizing, trying to cover it up with playful remarks and stolen glances? Love was always a bit of a mistake, the more he thought about it. There could be someone better out there for the one that you loved yet you thought so highly of them, you knew that nobody would love them exactly like you. With as much passion that burned in your heart as you. They wouldn’t want to sing lullabies the the lilies or catch tadpoles in the stream. They wouldn’t cherish their laugh the same way you did. That was where it was a mistake. The fool’s mistake.

And Lance was one of those fools.

“No.” He finally broke out of his silence, looking at Keith now with nothing but a newfound confidence in his eyes. Better to use it than to let it burn away. “None of this was a mistake. I would’ve taken that arrow for you, Keith. I want you to know something and I think there’s no point in hiding it any longer.”

One deep breath.

A few inches closer.

Lips against lips.

Perfection.

That was the only world that came to his mind as he let himself breathe in the scent of Keith he so longed to find. It was woodsy but not like a freshly cut tree. It was the smell of ashes blowing through the night. The crispness of the cold air seemed to radiate right off of his flesh. It was Keith. When they pulled away, both of their cheeks were graced with a tinge of red, both of them scolding themselves in their heads to get it to go away. It would be in vain but they would still try to hide their feelings. Even now. They’d sealed their hearts with a kiss only to try and reject it. Because their love was one that was balanced on a thread, waiting for the moment anything came along to snap it. Neither of them could find a word to say. So instead, Keith pulled Lance to his side onto the bed Allura had set for him, letting him under the covers. They spent a fair amount of time staring at each other’s faces, trying to memorize every inch of them. Only they fell asleep before they could.

Ignoring the song that echoed in the back of their heads.


	10. Chapter 10

The loud thumping of a book against a chair sent Keith’s eyes flying open.

He had grown to be a lighter sleeper than Lance had in his days of recovery, something that he now saw as a problem. It made his recovery time longer. Though Allura’s magic could heal the external markings of wounds, the trauma that they left emotionally wasn’t as easy to shake off. Having her anywhere near his chest that night had been enough of a struggle. At first, Keith desperately tried to get away from her. Lance didn’t know and would never know but he had crawled towards his unconcious form in a desperate attempt to escape the wrath he believe Allura to have. He tried shaking the water talent’s body, shouting which came out more as a whisper for him to wake up and save the two of them from this nightmare. 

“Come on, Lance!” Keith took in a deep breath, trying to steady himself so that the arrow wouldn’t move itself any further.

In the darkness, it had been impossible for him to tell where exactly it had buried itself in his chest. Later he was able to look at the scar and realize that, though close to his heart, there hadn’t been a risk of it shifting enough to kill him. That night however, Keith had little idea of anything. How much blood was dripping out of his wound as his own vision started to fade. How close Allura was to delivering the final blow, leaving his body to decay as days passed on as normal, a reminder to those who obeyed the rules how dangerous the outside world was. What mattered the most to him then was how long he had left to force himself off of the ground and pull the arrow out of his chest so that he could save Lance. Because there was no stronger of an emotion that possessed Keith than love ever did.

No matter the kind.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Allura’s voice made him jump, nearly slipping on the ground in shock. “That was all an act for them. Please, let me-”

“No!” Keith took a hold of Lance’s hands now, placing them around his neck. Only they hung limp, unable to grab onto him from the weakness that had overtaken his body from the state it was in. “I’d rather die here with him, if you’ll let me. Please grant me that wish at least.”

Allura stayed silent. She had little options that would be ideal for saving the both of them. If she saved only Keith, she would never forgive herself. Shiro’s loving remarks about how much the young fairy had grown under his wings repeated themselves in her head. He was the one that she loved so it would make sense for her to want to save Keith, so that the heart of gold she knew Shiro possessed would shine as bright as it always did. Her own heart was what she was focused on right then, however. The maternal instincts she’d developed when it came to Lance were screaming for her to take him in her arms and fly away, leaving Keith to die. This would leave her with Lance living but with him hating her for the rest of their lives. That would shatter her heart so she would have to make do and save them both.

Which meant getting Keith to cooperate with her.

“I want to save Lance just as much as you do.” Allura knelt down beside the frantic fairy, placing a hand on his shoulder. “But in order to do that, you’re going to have to work with me.”

Keith flinched, nearly knocking Allura off balance, but pushed aside his fears. For Lance. It was all for Lance. He had made it this far with the burned fairy in his arms and, as much as he was reluctant to work with her, the stakes were too high for him to not accept Allura’s offer. Keith hated the idea of Lance’s currently shut eyes never opening again, forever concealing the wonder and excitement they carried whenever they looked at the world around them. That never again would his voice sing alongside the orchestra of nature, exposing its every secret for all of the world’s creatures to hear. That there would never be a chance for him to kiss Lance’s warm forehead goodnight again, eagerly awaiting what adventures they discovered that day.

That he would be the cause of all of his friends’ suffering, all because of a single selfish wish.

“What do I have to do?” Keith asked, turning to face Allura in the dim twilight. Her hair was whiter than he imagined, face seeming more mature than he’d expected. It was like she was royalty, the heir to some secret kingdom nobody knew about. “Just tell me and it’s done.”

“Stay still.” He obeyed, even when he felt her place one hand on the undamaged part of his back and the other on the wood of the arrow. “This is going to hurt but I promise it will feel better once it’s out.”

There was no countdown for when she decided to pull it out. No warning for Keith to brace himself for the burst of torture that radiated through his body like a rapid explosion. He had to cover his mouth with both of his hands to stifle his agonizing screams. There was something so sudden about the impact of the arrow going in, so forgettable once it was embedded into his flesh, that it’d somehow become a bearable pain by the time she had been ready to remove it. It was what it rattled around inside of him, the bits and pieces that the arrow had dislodged now brushing up against it as it was ripped right out from within him, that made it all the worse. He held his breath through it, biting into his palm ever so slightly, until a sigh alerted him that Allura had successfully removed it without him sustaining any extra damage. 

“Now this is the easy part.” She smiled, throwing the arrow off somewhere in the distance behind her. “Relax and let the magic do its work.”

From what seemed to be out of nowhere, tendrils of color began to snake their way from her fingertips. At first, Keith thought they looked like light shining through a prism, close to that of the crystal Lance had shown him back home. He began to notice, however, that they were merely variations of one color. Pink. In shades as deep as the darkest of roses to as light as the color of the sunsets that Keith had spent watching with Lance. Radiant, wonderful beams of magic. Keith knew, with his whole heart, that they could be trusted. The intentions behind them, whether they be for Allura’s personal gain or the benefit of the two of them, didn’t taint any ounce of their healing. Soon enough, all that was left was a scar, a hole in his shirt, and the blood that had leaked from it earlier. He ran his fingers across it just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. Sure enough, no sticky residue coated his fingertips when he held them up to the pale light. 

“How did you do that?” Keith asked, in awe of the power she possessed.

“No time to explain.” Allura responded, gesturing to Lance, who was still unconscious on the ground. “Would you mind carrying your boyfriend the whole way back?”

“He’s not my-” Keith dropped the argument, too concerned about Lance to bother initiating it in the first place.

He made sure that the blanket he’d wrapped around the still shivering fairy was bundled around him tightly, so that he had no risk of his body temperature being thrown off more than it already was. Lance felt so faint in his arms. Not because he was light in weight or anything like that. It was how shallow his breathing was, almost as distant as the stars. His heartbeat was even fainter, leading Keith to believe there was no time to waste in getting him somewhere safe. Allura waved her hand so that he would follow her lead, the two of them slinking through shadows like a pair of silent spies. Keith tried not to let himself look up at the sky as they flew. That was supposed to be the last part of their day together. He had planned to ask Lance what the two of them were then or, rather, what they could be. The build up would have no release, their story no end.

Keith didn’t know if it had said anything about how their relationship would play out now, looking at the sleeping boy beside him. Every worry that had plagued his mind had faded out of his thoughts the moment they kissed. Now, when everything around him was filled with a silence he only wanted Lance’s voice to fill, it was clear that the worries were back. What if they never made it back home again? What if Shiro thought it was weird that he’d fallen in love with Lance? Shiro had explained to Keith everything that had happened between him and Allura. How she had saved him, that time ago. How he had fallen in love with her, selfishly staying behind so that he and her would be safe. 

“I know it wasn’t the smartest thing for me to do.” Shiro had shrugged. It was clear that he felt guilty, in the way his body seemed so tense that it could hardly move, unlike he usually was. “But I didn’t want to see her get hurt.”

Keith had nodded along, reassuring him that he understood. What he wouldn’t tell Shiro, what he could barely admit to himself, was that he would do the same thing for Lance. There was nobody, not even Shiro, that came before the well being of the water fairy he’d grown to love. Lance seemed as fragile as one of his water orbs. When he was in control, when everything was going his way, it was stable. There would be no ripples, except for the swirls of wonder and excitement that flowed throughout inside of him. If something came along and disturbed this serenity, like a stranger tapping him on the back, the whole thing would break in a burst that would splash him and whoever else was around. It would always be Keith’s fault for his burns, the scars he couldn’t bare to look at, even though he’d felt them. Seeing would make him believe it. Feeling had the hope that his senses were deceiving him. A phantom something that wasn’t there.

That was why he had to make it up to Lance and protect him, no matter what would be thrown their way.

Looking around the dimly lit room now, his eyes landed on the source of the noise. A notebook, with a sturdy black cover and neat, crisp pages, greeted him as it sat on the chair next to his bed. Curious he got up and pulled it into his lap on the chair, careful not to disturb Lance’s slumber. Either he’d already been awoken by the thump or Keith wasn’t careful enough because Lance rubbed his eyes wearily, sitting up so that there would be enough space for the two of them to examine the book together. Keith took the space beside him, pushing the covers towards Lance, who wrapped them around himself with scarred hands.

“So this is what made that noise, huh?” He pulled it over so that it rested on one of each of their legs, Lance’s right and Keith’s left, in order to give them both of them a good view of its pages. “Do you know who left it?”

“I couldn’t catch them.” Keith sighed, looking down at its pages.

On them were lines and curves, combined into what he could make out to be characters from the fairy language Lance knew from living on the inside. The occasional word stood out to him, like ‘my’ and ‘I’. Basic things that he had learned from their tutoring sessions back in the forest. Keith couldn’t read much more of anything in it aside from that, rendering the whole book itself completely useless. He looked over to see how Lance was faring reading it. With every line he read, it seemed his face only fell deeper into a solemnity that unsettled Keith. The text before him held things that he couldn’t understand, things that he needed to learn to be able to understand. It could say any number of things about himself or Lance, for the better or worse, that could change their lives. Except he was doomed to the silence, an unfillable void that felt like it would stretch on forever. The flipping of book pages broke it, as Lance scanned over the first page. It had less written on it, a sentence at best. 

“What does it say?” Keith asked, pointing down at the unknown characters. “Should I be worried?”

Lance shook his head, “I don’t think so.”

He then began to read off of the page, pointing at each character as he did.

“To Keith. With the hope that someone will come along and deliver this book to you so that you may learn from them the truth about us.”

“You never told me Allura made such a good teacher!” Keith laughed, though it trailed off to silence abruptly, allowing his body to feel that warmth that came from someone caring. Like a clear summer’s day. “At least he never forgot about me.”

“I hate to break it to you, but this is Allura’s handwriting.” Lance let his hand touch the edges of the books cover. His burns were healing ever so slightly by the day, though Keith couldn’t notice this. All he could see was how painful they looked. For underneath this shedding layer of skin was something red and raw. From cuts, his new layer of skin, or bursted blisters, Keith couldn’t tell. “What she wrote, were the words he told her to write. Everything in this book was written with you in mind. You’re right about the last bit, at least.”

“What do you think it’s about?”

Keith couldn’t begin to imagine how much time had gone into this. How many days Shiro and Allura had sat down somewhere, side by side, to write down everything that he wanted Keith to know about the knowledge he gathered while living on the inside. How much ink had been spent on every word that went onto these pages, which seemed to be endless. It wasn’t a thin book by any means. Keith liked to believe it was no more than two hundred pages, which was shooting low for how heavy it felt on his leg. This was wisdom, bound into a book meant for him to read. These were the things Shiro had stayed to understand for Keith. What they would tell him, what he would learn from Lance reciting it to him, Keith couldn’t begin to imagine. 

“How about we read it and find out together?” Lance flipped it from the dedication to the first page with words, packed as tightly as they could be. “Sound like a plan?”

“Absolutely.” Keith smiled, steadying his leg, as he’d been unconsciously tapping his foot. “Let the stories begin.”

And how many there were.

This was the history of the fairies that were born of a victim’s final scream. The ones who, when they arrived, shedded tufts of dandelion fluff that were stained a deep gray from it. Before himself and Shiro, fairies born in this twisted way were known to inhabit a forest far away from the one they had lived in. This one was closer to the center of everything, the most respectable place a fairy could live. Pixie Hollow. They never walked among these fairies of light. Nobody had ever told them that they couldn’t but they feared the unknown, for they saw how harsh it could be on the fragile creatures. In this forest, they had a community. Since their talents seemed to blend into one underlying one, they were able to teach each other different aspects of their magic, in hopes that one of them would be able to venture outside one day, having the strength to face the horrors they knew to be on the outside. 

This was a time in fairy history that everyone tried to forget. It was why the stories of fairies who strayed from their path like Tinkerbell were made out to be warnings. It was why those who possessed powers stronger than the rest were taken away in the night. Everything was in a state of turmoil and chaos. When this fairy emerged from the forest, it made matters worse. The queen they had back then sent an army after him and all of the fairies of his kind. A rumor had spread in their world that one of the fairies of light had fallen in love with a fairy of dark. They would sneak around to see each other every chance that they could, against all of the odds against them. One day, the fairy of dark told that fairy of light that he wanted to marry her. He didn’t care about the consequences. It wasn’t fair for them to have to hide their love when there wasn’t anything wrong with it. It was just as beautiful, if not more.

She couldn’t have agreed more. And so, with wings flying them higher than ever before, they went back to their friends and told them the news, reciting their love story from the beginning. The faces around them went from smiling to yelling, letting loose as many hurtful words as they could. Supposedly it was this dark fairy who was told by the others to kill the girl, hiding her body at the edge of the forest, which would later be found by the others and the fairy of dark given up as a sacrifice, so that their communities would be able to live side by side for the rest of time in parallel peace. No matter how much he denied it, nobody would believe him. His friends refused to defend him, even though the pits in their stomachs screamed at them to. It had been the girl’s friends who had murdered her, believing that this would solve all of their problems. That she would always remain untainted by the darkness.

This was the spark of the hatred that caused the queen to wipe them out entirely. In this process, the fairies of light grew to appreciate their leadership. It was strict. It caused them to work tirelessly for hours on end so that the seasons would change but it felt like a fair price to pay for having the darkness wiped off of the face of the earth. So those who were stronger were sentenced to live their lives out in secret prisons, as an unfair punishment for deviating from what was expected of them. That was when the direction of the winds began to change, blowing these tufts of dandelion fluff into all reaches of the fairy realm, in hopes that their kind would live on among the shadows. 

Lance read everything that explained this in record time. As he did, Keith leaned his head gently on his shoulder. There was something about his voice that was soothing, even with the horrific tale he was reciting. It felt like a lullaby, one that he’d remembered from long ago that had been sung by someone outside of the forest, mellow and slow. Now he hesitated, cutting off the rhythm he was speaking with. Keith snapped his head up. Lance’s eyes kept rereading one line, over and over again. It wasn’t any different from the others. It was just barely cramped in onto the bottom of one page, as ones before it had been. It held something different, however. Something that caused Lance to take in a deep breath before beginning to read the final bits on the page.

“Those fairies were meant to help those under the queen’s harsh rule break free from their suffering.” Lance’s voice was shaking. How bad was what he was about to say going to be? “They were created of darkness to overpower her. Fairies like us are nothing but weapons, born to fight against the cruelty of the world.”

Keith could feel his struggle to continue on, so he took Lance’s hand that wasn’t holding the book in his own. Keith would never feel how soft it felt before the flames ate it up but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting Lance to calm down, just enough so that he could regain his focus and read the final line in the notebook.

“We are the precursors of war.”

Keith’s eyes widened. He looked at Lance to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken. That he hadn’t skipped a word or misread the entire thing altogether. Lance could only shrug in response, unsure of what to say himself from the information they had just learned. Allura’s cruelty, how shunned they were from the inside, the immense amounts of power that they possessed. It all came rushing to Keith in an epiphany that he wanted to stop. He didn’t want to accept that the inside world was somehow darker than he was, with his fire that could burn anything he wanted to a crisp. He couldn’t stop the breaking of his heart as he realized how Lance must’ve felt when he promised to take him to get help on the inside. In the same set of circumstances, Keith would’ve taken death over their restriction of freedom any day. This was the story that deserved to be told to fairies all along. The one that would change the way they perceived how pathetic their lives would lead on for as long as they existed. That there was some hope for them, if they could see through the prejudice that they were taught to protect themselves.

That there was a way from them to gain back the freedom they’d lost, so that no one would have to stick to the talent that they were assigned.

“How did you not know about this before?” Keith asked Lance, who had resumed his furious rereading of the page. “How did Shiro find this out?”

“It was through me.” Allura poked her head in through the doorway, Shiro’s popping in beside her. “Joining the Black Hoods gave me benefits in more ways than one. I was able to protect Lance and learn all of the information I could about fairies like you and Shiro, so that he would be able to tell it to you through that book.”

“It would’ve started a rebellion if they hadn’t hidden it.” Lance chimed in, with an insight of his own. “Restricting the information we have is a minor inconvenience so that we’ll follow them blindly. They had to entrust you with that information since you’re someone who made themselves act like they wanted to snuff out the power that could cause controversy just like them. And those who start to question the way things are, they’re taken away in addition to those with immense power. Am I wrong?”

“No you aren’t.” She replied, sighing. “The way we live now is messed up. We work ourselves half to death for a queen we never even see! All because they tell us to, since it’s what’s right in their eyes.”

That was why none of them had begun to start a rebellion against them. The Black Hoods, the dark fairies, the vast amounts of work that they were given to complete in a day. Every one of them was something to make them hesitate in doing so. Going against them meant that they would die. Fairies valued life highly, since they worked so closely with it. To give up their life meant to give up the life that they gave to the seasons, the beauty that they worked tirelessly to preserve. It might be a strain on their physical forms or their mental states but a fairy’s soul purpose was to serve the seasons. Subconsciously, this ruled over all of their actions and it showed. If they started rebelling, they would be saying that they mattered more than nature. That the very thing that had given them life was less important than their happiness, than their freedom. It was why fairies like Lance and Allura, Keith realized, found subtle ways to challenge this.

Because nature was on their side in this game of life.

“Isn’t there anything we can do to stop them?” Shiro spoke this time, to everyone’s surprise. “Keith and I could be strong enough together to at least overthrow the leaders of Maple Grove. We could die in the process of fighting the queen but-”

“No.” Allura said. “ Nobody’s fighting anybody. There has been enough suffering on your end and ours for generations. All we can do now is try to find ways to make ourselves happy, without anyone becoming suspicious of us.”

The four of them had nothing else to share. They were powerless, ultimately facing the risk of at least one of them dying if they so chose to wage a war for their freedom. There was nothing that they could do that wouldn’t cause more battle scars, ones that would keep them up for days on end with the reminder of where they came from. So it was decided in this silence that they would give up the fight for them all and fight for themselves, in the hopes that it would cause less suffering than a battle would. Allura and Shiro were about to leave Keith and Lance alone to do as they pleased when a knock at the door made them think otherwise.

“It’s past nightfall!” Allura exclaimed. “Who could be here at this hour?”

“I don’t know but I’ll stay in here.” Shiro replied, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Everything will be okay.”

She smiled sadly, squeezing his hand one last time for good measure, before leaving to get the door. The three of them dared not say a word, trying to make their breaths as silent as possible. Lance grabbed onto Keith’s arm, squeezing it to try and stop his shaking. Nothing good could come of a late night visitor.

And this would be no exception.


	11. Chapter 11

Allura thought she had taken all the precautions necessary to prevent anyone from making a big deal out of her absence.

She had began to fake herself falling ill over the past week, sensing that there was some danger brewing. Her intuition was one of the traits about her that made her so valuable to the Black Hoods, proved through her consistency in pointing out those who were secret traitors or held powers beyond what their capabilities should have been. How they came up with the limit on how much power they could possess was beyond her. She assumed it was when their powers worked the way that her own did, stretching beyond the boundaries of what they could analyze. There had always been a little something extra in the flowers she tended to or the produce she grew. What the others never saw was her trailing behind them, brushing her fingertips atop every last plant on the verge of death, giving them their lives back without a second thought.

Shiro had been her first test subject. Fairy test subject. She had tried it on creatures she’d found wounded beside bushes or at the feet of trees. Birds with broken wings or squirrels who’d taken a tumble out of a tree, on a branch that fell with no warning. They were all successes, instantly scurrying away from her the moment she was finished with them. It was the least she could do, with all of the hypocrisy she enacted in her daily life. Turning those in who were just like her, able to deviate from their given talent to benefit nature in ways that had never been known before. Or making another talent’s job easier, with their magic blending into a different type all together. It was no wonder that when her friends or admirers noticed strands of her snow white hair sticking out from beneath the black hood she wore to conceal them would start screaming her name. Desperation, agony, betrayal. She heard them all as tears streamed down their faces, leading to the part that broke her heart the most.

Acceptance.

In her later years of working with the Black Hoods, many had come to terms with the fact that she was one of them. How they knew was something that she could never come up with a decisive answer for. Did they happen to be peering out a window on one of these hopeless nights, on the rare occasion she let her hood down? Did they sneak into the prison to visit one of their friends, them begging the other to warn ones like them of Allura’s position? Both theories were preposterous, as the observantness with which her group watched over Maple Grove was comparable to that of owls. All knowing, with knowledge that they would never reveal. All seeing, with eyes watching them from places they couldn’t see. Calling out ‘who?’ in hopes that someone might take the bait, handing their friend over in fear of what may happen to themselves. They were predatory animals. They fed on the strong, snuffing them out in the hopes that all that would remain would be the weak.

Their dream was impossible, as was her’s. That was why someone was behind her front door, awaiting her permission to enter. She couldn’t deny them access to her home. Allura had found ways to hide Shiro before, ways that she assumed he was passing on to Keith and Lance as she floated in mid-air. Her hand hesitated as it reached out toward the knob, regretting then agreeing to sign herself over to all of this. There was only so much lying she could take. So many smiles she had to pretend were genuine, when they were used to cover up the aggressiveness with which she bit her tongue. So many words of comfort she had to force out of her throat, locking up the ones she was eager to say in a cell, pushing it out of her mind. She’d even had to lie to Lance, the one who she treated like her honorary son. Their relationship had taken blows before but none of them had hit as close to home as this one. That was what propelled her to throw the door open.

The thought of his heart shattering if any more harm were to come to Keith.

“Allura!” Pidge grinned, throwing her arms around the garden talent for a few seconds. Not who she was expecting to see. “Hunk and I decided to stop by and see how you were doing.”

“Y-Yes!” The animal talent managed, after taking a blow to the stomach by the tinker’s elbow. “Everyone’s been worried about you, including us. So we brought you some cookies to help cheer you up!”

Allura had to blink a few times before the reality of what was happening finally settled in. Hunk was the one who would check in on their group when one of them had fallen ill or injured themselves in some way. Pidge? She hardly ever left her workshop. It had always been a running joke within their friend group that the only way to get her to go anywhere was to promise that they’d stop by the junkyard, so that she could rummage through the scraps of other tinkerers like herself in the hopes that she’d find just the piece that she’d been looking for. Her being here now could have meant any number of things. All Allura’s mind could focus on were the worst case scenarios, ones that she had to pretend not to feel looming above her as she spoke.

“You didn’t have to do that!” She smiled, a practiced liar’s smile. “I’m feeling a lot better, thank you. It was just a mild fairy flu, I’m afraid, but I’ll be back out there in the sunshine tomorrow.”

Allura let the two of them inside, much to what seemed to be their relief. As she closed the door, she could’ve sworn that she heard her name exchanged in a whisper between them. She managed to convince herself that it was nothing more than her paranoia, something that kept her on edge at every moment. There wasn’t a second Allura felt that she could rest that she didn’t risk losing everything that she had worked so hard to keep. Her high alert was one of the reasons she’d saved Shiro from being found out countless times. Now wasn’t the time to think about them, Allura thought to herself, so she shook her head, letting her hair fall on her shoulders. It smelled faintly of hydrangeas, her favorite flowers to work with. 

Hunk had set the plate of cookies down on the table, freeing them of the leaf that had been placed over them to ensure that they wouldn’t fall. They were beautiful. All sorts of paintings had been painted on them with frosting and food dye, ranging from trees covered in a layer of snow to butterflies and bees bustling around the newly opened buds of flowers. Whoever had been working at the bakery in the past few days really knew their craft well. She picked one up off of the plate and bit into it, destroying the delicately painted daffodil while relishing its subtle spiced flavor.

“These are delicious.” She took another bite. It was almost better than the first. “What bakery did you get them at?”

“Well-”

“A new one.” Pidge jumped in before Hunk could continue. That was odd. “We’ll have to all go sometime.”

Allura’s skepticism got the better of her so she paused for a moment. Not in a way that they would notice. She munched on her cookie and made small talk, as anyone else would. The difference was that she shutdown the part of her brain that was in charge of such mundane tasks, focusing all of her attention on the way her friends were acting. It was late, first of all. This wasn’t surprising to her. Nighttime was the only time any fairy had to spare in whatever way they decided, this being one of the kinder ways. What worried her more was Hunk. He seemed to be on edge, glancing at Allura, eyes filled with nerves. Whenever they discussed anything that had to do with the dark fairies or the fate of their land, he tensed up in a way that was obvious and heartbreaking.

Fairies like him didn’t deserve to be dragged into their fight. Pidge had always been the one who was concerned about safety measures, not quite understanding what Allura was hiding from her. She’d played her spy once, going out into the woods one day in the garden fairy’s place, reporting back to her that her suspicions of Keith and Lance growing closer together were true. Allura wondered if they had noticed Pidge and mistook her for herself, something that wouldn’t surprise her in the least. Someday she would tell them the truth, when things were simpler. Now was not the time. Pidge was one of the best liars out of them, one that could even hide things from Allura. They had to have stopped by for something more. Whatever they wanted had to be related to information on the whereabouts of Lance, since Allura had dropped the topic of the water fairy altogether as soon as she realized he wouldn’t be coming back. 

“Are you sure you’re alright Allura?” Pidge asked, snapping Allura out of the trance she didn’t know that she was in. “Is something else bothering you?”

“I’ve been worried about Lance.” Allura said, after faking an exhausted sigh. “I haven’t heard from him in a month and I’ve been too scared to go running after him.”

“We have been too.” Hunk chimed in, more like himself. “That’s part of the reason we stopped by, to see if you knew anything. I guess you don’t either so if you’ll-”

“You’re sure you haven’t talked to him lately?”

The way Pidge asked that question almost sent shivers down Allura’s spine. There was so much suspicion to it, an excess of accusation that shouldn’t have been there. Hunk noticed it too. He tried to push a cookie her way, a bit of sweetness to take the bitter edge off, but she ignored it. Her hands folded beneath her chin as if she needed another layer of terror to her already horrific look, forcing Allura to maintain her strength. There wasn’t a battle she wouldn’t fight for the dark fairies now. No matter how subtle, no matter how small. Shiro would be safe with her like she promised, as would Keith. There wasn’t anything she wanted more than to keep him alive for Lance. So she took in a deep breath without making a sound, forced her hands to stop shaking with her determination, facing Pidge with the warrior’s strength that Shiro always complimented her for having.

“I’m positive, Pidge.” Allura crossed her legs and uncrossed them, having a difficult time deciding on the most comfortable position for confrontation. “Why would I lie to you? There’s nothing for me to gain or lose. I don’t have anything to begin with.”

“Cut the act, Allura.” Pidge was angry now, angrier than Allura had ever seen her before. “Me and Hunk know that you’re working with the Black Hoods. You have to have seen Lance or whatever the name of that horrible fairy he’s so obsessed with is.”

“I haven’t seen either of them.” Allura could feel herself tensing up, holding back something. Tears, a punch, sweat, she couldn’t tell. “Like I said before. I’m as worried about Lance as you are but you know him. His heart leads him on some of the riskiest adventures known to our kind. He’s travelled to places nobody else has dared to go, too close to the possibility of running into either of the dark fairies. We can’t risk going back for him when it might bring trouble to us if we hurt the one Lance is with to get him to come home.”

“You would’ve risked anything to save him before.”  
Allura’s eyes widened in disbelief, “Excuse me?”

“Pidge, come on.” Hunk pleaded. “Let’s just go. There’s nothing we can get out of her now.”

Hunk started to recover the remaining cookies and Pidge let him. There was something about her manner, the way she was impatiently tapping her foot, crossing her arms like one of their bosses at work, that made Allura’s heart rate rise just a bit. There was nothing for her to fear now that they were leaving. So she let herself find some solace in this, a bit of peace when chaos was all that swirled in her mind. She had managed to protect them, with Shiro’s help. They could live out their days hidden at her place, safe from whatever the outside world wanted to throw their way. Whether it be rocks, arrows, or something worse. That was, she thought they were safe.

Until something crashed to the floor from the other room.

For a moment, the three of them stood still. None of them wanted to make the first move until someone said something. Allura held her stance, acting as if nothing had happened. Though she knew what it was, she knew it perfectly well. She hadn’t accounted for how much weight the three of them would be up in the attic. There was certainly more than enough space for them to crawl into it, lying on their stomachs. Having Shiro help her build it had seemed, at the time, to be a good idea. He was knew how to build and was able to heave the heavy boards up to that height to reinforce the floor. There must not have been enough nails or the wood must’ve been brittle, having been scraps a mere months before. Whoever it was, she thought a silent hope that they were okay and that they would find some way to make to clear up the mess, though she knew that this was wishful thinking at best. 

“What was that?” Pidge asked, perking up.

“Nothing that you need to worry about.” Allura smiled, heading to the front door to open it. “Whatever it is, I’ll call a carpentry talent to take a look at it tomorrow. You two need your rest, I’m sure so-”

“I’m a tinker talent.” Pidge reminded Allura, as if she could have somehow forgotten. “I could take a look at it, if you’d like. Unless there’s something you’re hiding back there.”

Pidge laughed, as if it were nothing but a joke. Neither Hunk or Allura were amused. Hunk put the plate of cookies back down on the table, taking a seat one more. He didn’t look like he was going to be of much assistance to Allura, with the subtle shaking she could tell that he was doing. She went over to him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, hoping to provide him some comfort. Pidge looked almost disgusted at this, the way one might look at someone if they stole a friend from right under their nose and turned them against them. She started flying just above the ground, enough so that her wings made her movements faster than she would be on her feet. Allura could feel her grip on Hunk stiffen, who looked up at her with fearful eyes.

Pidge was on the right track to finding them.

The doorway she stood in front of was the one that led to the main room in front of the tiny cramped one she’d originally had Shiro staying in. When Keith came along, it only made sense for him to rest in there while Shiro got the outside room. And it gave Allura an excuse to let him sleep in her bed, something that he had been hesitant to do because of his wings. They had scared her, to be truthful, when they had first met. Unlike the softer tinges of color Allura had known fairies of her kind to have had, his were dark and clouded. Almost like a glass jar, clouded with ash from a candle. Though they were careful and it ended up being one of the only sources of comfort she had been able to get in the past while, other than talking to Shiro and being around him. There was something about having someone in your arms that kept you grounded, almost like a fairy anchor. He kept her from drifting away when everything seemed to be falling apart.

So Allura followed Pidge on her adventures into finding the source of the mysterious noise. There was nothing out of place when they entered her bedroom. At most, her sheets were wrinkled a bit more than they usually were. Allura wasn’t a graceful sleeper. She tended to toss and turn all night, thinking about where things were going not only for herself but the other fairies around her. Daisy and Violet, two of her garden talent friends, always admired her for her compassion and worry when it came to other fairies affairs. It, at first, had been a genuine connection. Allura wanted to help them in any way that she could. Overtime, however, fairies came to rely on her for this. They drained every ounce of care out of her, turning her into nothing but a shell of the kindness she once held. There was always a reserve of it, stashed away from these fairies hungry eyes, hidden specifically for her friends.

Though none of it would help her protect them now.

“Since when did you have a room back here?” Pidge poked her head in the doorway.

Hunk, who had trailed in behind them, was trying to ask them a question. Pidge shushed him without a second thought, eyes too transfixed on whatever she saw before her. Hunk and Allura slowly inched their way to see behind each of her shoulders, careful of her wings. She was shorter than the both of them so more of her wings were there to block their views. It didn’t matter. The view was as plain as day, even from standing next to her. Keith, Lance, and Shiro, all in a pile on the floor, with boards underneath and on top of them (Allura had made him reinforce the roof when he build the attic, just to be on the safe side). Allura lifted them off of them, with the help of Hunk, surveying the damage done. Keith seemed to have a few splinters and scrapes at most. Shiro had a bump on his forehead that Allura knew would swell up more. 

Lance was the worst off of them all. 

From where Allura was kneeling now, as she helped him up off of the floor, she noticed his hand reaching towards his wing. At first, she noticed nothing wrong. It seemed a bit droopier than usual but that was to be expected; he had is wings behind his back, which meant they were lowered. It was only when he tried to raise them up and winced that she realized what had happened. Flying over to his side, she held the torn pieces in her hands. Pidge was still standing in the doorway, unmoving. Allura couldn’t not use her powers in front of her. If Lance’s wing wasn’t healed, he wouldn’t be able to fly ever again. There was only a small window in which repairs could be done to save it. So she let herself work her magic, channeling all of it into mending his wing like stitches. Hunk watched on in awe while Pidge still refused to budge. 

When Allura let herself sit down on the bed, only the chair had been harmed in the attic falling down, she couldn’t hold back her words from Pidge any longer. It was time that she told another outsider the truth, someone who wasn’t in on the twisted game they’d found themselves caught in. Whether it be for love or friendship, safety or protection, they were in this together. They had made mistakes and learned from them. They had been on their own little inside, sheltering themselves the best they could from the outside they knew to be dangerous. No matter how bad the consequences, there was no harm in trying to change Pidge’s mind when she already knew the truth. Allura was going to go down fighting in her own way. It wasn’t fair for Keith and Lance to have to take the bullets for her and Shiro.

It was time she fired some back of her own.

“Surprise!” Allura jumped up as if to scared Pidge. It almost did. “I can heal people! I’ve always been able to. Anything that’s dead or dying, I can bring back to life. I don’t care what you’re going to do to me at this point. The four of us have been living lies. I fell in love with one of the fairies from outside, for crying out loud! So did Lance! We’ve been hiding from everyone on the inside since we know you won’t accept us. Isn’t that why you really came here today? To expose us?”

Allura was shaking by this point. Not out of fear, not out of anger. Strength. This was what she had been wanting to do all along. It was her time to fight, to shine in the armor that she’d been wearing all along. She was never meant to hide beneath it but show it to the world. Show everyone how tough her skin was, how hard she was to break. Pidge was starting to back away now but Hunk kept her inside, nodding as if telling her to hear Allura out. She obliged reluctantly, still hesitant to get too close to Allura in this cramped room.

“You can’t even admit it.” She laughed, practically scoffing at the smaller fairy. “You’re working with the Black Hoods, aren’t you? They suspected me, I’m sure. Checking out all of their information, not quite being as honest as I could be about my own. Here’s some information for you.”

She got up and stood between Keith and Shiro, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

“These two are some of the greatest weapons we have against the Black Hoods.” She patted the both of them. “We could rise up against them and make Maple Grove and possibly all of Pixie Hollow free again for every fairy. We could have the powers that we have without being taken away for them. We could let these outsiders live with us on the inside. We could do anything that we wanted to do to benefit fairy society if we work together against them. I know you have it in you to change your mind.”

Pidge sighed, “I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” Allura could feel tears welling up in her eyes. “Do me and Lance mean nothing to you? Were our years of friendship all for nothing? What about you, Hunk? How could you be with her on this? You see it in them, don’t you? They only want the same thing as us. To be free.”

“I-I can’t do this.” Hunk ran out of the room, yelling something behind them that none of the five of them left could hear.

Shiro had grabbed onto Allura’s hand by this point, as had Keith to Lance’s. They wouldn’t leave this fight without the ones they loved by their sides. It might have been pointless, if they were going to die. It might have seemed stupid, to those who wouldn’t try to believe. But what they had, in each other and in the world around them, was faith. Faith that somehow, they’d all make it out of this war alive, so that they could live to tell the tale Shiro and Allura knew as words in their head. To Keith and Lance, it was a song. Though they couldn’t remember the lyrics, only the tune. The words would come to them after it was all said and done.

If only they believed.

“I’m sorry, Allura.” Pidge pulled out something that looked like a transmitter. “I really am. But now, you’re just a monster like them. After all that they did to hurt our kind, after everything that they want to do to our kind.”

Allura raised her voice to say something but stopped as Pidge flipped the switch on the device in her hand. In what seemed like no time at all, there was a knocking at her door. A knocking that got louder and louder, more desperate and impatient with every endless moment that passed. Allura squeezed tighter onto Shiro’s hand. Lance whispered something into Keith’s ear, who whispered something in return. It was a moment of silence, a moment of regrets, while simultaneously being a moment of victory and hope. All of them were fighting back tears, knowing very well that this could be their final day. The hope was there in their hearts but their minds were disagreeing. They wouldn’t let them win. They had to stay strong, no matter what came next.

“You’re nothing but traitors.” Pidge said, turning away to go and get the door. Not before Allura could land one final bullet, one straight to the heart.

“There aren’t any traitors here but you.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! This is a special update for you all. Today, March 21st, I am officially sixteen years old! And, to celebrate my birthday, I wanted to give you all an extra special update. It is angsty. It's going to make you cry. But it's the longest update in the history of this five at over nine thousand five hundred words and that's barely a thank you for sticking with me so long.
> 
> You've made this birthday one of the best by caring about this story, about wanting more of it, and I am more than happy to repay you with more of it. So enjoy, and I'll see you next time I update. <3

“Keith?”

Lance called out to the darkness around him. He’d lost count of how many times he’d done this, unable to count the hours that had passed. There were only two times he knew existed in this confined life. The time he was awake and the time he wasn’t. When he was awake, Lance always found a plate with some sort of food on it waiting for him. There would be a glass of water sitting next to it as well, tasting of something Lance couldn’t quite place. He suspected it was some sort of concoction that controlled how long he slept and what times he would awaken but it was more likely what they used to clean it. There had always been a strange taste to it when he’d lived on the inside, different from the water Keith taught him how to filter. This had almost a bitter taste, something that reminded him of medicine he had been prescribed ages ago for an illness. Whatever was left on the plate was always stale, most likely the leftovers from the bakery at the end of the week, but it was food. It kept his stomach as settled as it could be, grounding it with a muffin, cookie, or tea cake. 

The time he wasn’t awake was spent in a sleep filled with nightmares. In them, many of the things that were present in the place he was living in currently manifested themselves into elements of horrors Lance couldn’t ever shake. The rattling of the metal cuffs snapped onto his wrists, chained to the floor with a length of chain short enough that he could never make it to the door, even if he didn’t have the weight of two more cuffs on his feet. They weren’t linked to any chains that bound him to the floor, but that didn’t phase his mind. It had a hay day with these, turning them to branches of the forest that returned Lance home the night Keith had flown him back, ripping him out of his arms before he could have a chance to say goodbye or ropes, tied around his wrists and ankles by the Black Hoods, while they tortured Keith in front of him in various ways that Lance had no relief from seeing.

There was no way to for him to close his eyes in this nightmare. Whether he be awake or asleep, living or dead, it would linger with his very life force, unless he found a way to break free. He looked around at the faint lighting of the room. There was a lantern in the middle of his cell, though it hardly ever burned to its fullest brightness when he was awake. The ceiling seemed to be about ten feet high, making the entirety of the cell feel spacious and eerie. It was as if someone was lurking on the other end of it in the darkness, waiting for him to awaken so that they could make a move to kill him once and for all. The bars, from what he could tell, weren’t rusted or far enough apart that he could manage to build some sort of contraption to stick through them to unlock the door like he was certain Pidge would do in this situation. 

Thinking about her was too hard for Lance right then. There were too many mysteries surrounding what had made her decide to betray them when they hadn’t so much as laid a finger on her. Keith hadn’t wanted to let go of Lance. It was part of the reason why he was so worried about his well being, remembering vividly the needle they’d injected into his arm with something to stop his struggling. Lance had given in far easier, not wanting to risk his or Keith’s lives once again. He didn’t want to risk anyone’s life. Falling in love with someone from the outside had caused enough trouble for them as it was. Not knowing that he had fallen in love had made it even worse. If Lance had known it was love, he would’ve been more careful to not make stupid mistakes. He would’ve learned from Allura and been cautious, not rushing headfirst into flirting when that wasn’t even his style of love in the first place.

Love to Lance was something that came with understanding. It was the force that brought two people together against all odds and turned them into something unexpected. It was what Lance had found in Keith’s eyes whenever he looked at them, wondering why they seemed to light up specifically for him. Love was complicated, a feeling that nobody has been able to understand since the beginning of time. It felt like butterflies fluttering around in your stomach while their wings left cuts that felt raw and deep. As you got closer to the one you loved, they would heal, until the butterflies themselves would leave entirely. What would remain would be a warmth that no other person could give you. Something that you’d crave like a drug all while knowing it would break you more without it. Lance had never cared about breaking. He’d only wanted to know the feeling of that warmth, and the many memories that would surround it. That was why he called out for Keith, hoping that he’d never have to face a life without him. 

When Lance was awake, feeling his heart break from the lack of a response, he would try to listen. Not for the rattling of chains or footsteps or any sort of movement. What he wanted was a song. The song. The one that had brought the two of them together without meaning to, sung as a lullaby in the darkest hours of the night. Its words had escaped him even back then, only fed into his mind by nature itself. Lance had   
tried to clear his head and listen for its words, the melody, any part of it that he could latch onto and use as something that he could keep as a connection between the two of them. A secret that was told only to them, whispered into their ears as all of the other fairies kept on flying along. Nature would never allow itself to let them in on its vulnerability, the part of itself that the broken knew how to connect with the most. When everything around you seemed important, despite it being something that your mind scans over each and every day.

Which was why Lance was shocked to hear someone breathing from the other side of his cell. At first, he thought that it was his imagination, desperate to give him any sort of hope, considering the circumstances he was in. That was when he heard their chains start moving. They clunked against the floor rapidly, as if they were desperate to get to Lance’s side. It was hard to make out what this figure looked like from afar, if you were anybody else but Lance. He recognized them immediately. Their jagged wings, with a tinge of red. Their dark hair, plastered against the side of their face with sweat. But the most unique trait of this fairy’s was their eyes, ones that Lance had spent hours in the woods staring into. Keith was there with him. Lance’s warrior had survived, here to protect him with his heart alone.

Keith reached out to Lance. He let his hand lay limp in the center of their cell, Lance intertwining their fingers without a second’s hesitation. Keith squeezed Lance’s hand. It was almost as if he were checking to make sure that he was real. That this wasn’t just another dream his mind had conjured up to lull him into a false sense of security when his very world was crumbling. Lance smiled to reassure him of this. That Keith had made it out alive. They might not have long, neither of them knowing what would become of them in the future, but they would spend every waking moment they shared with each other. Keith smiled back, as if to confirm that he knew. Both of them were terrified. It was impossible not to be, trapped in the conditions that they were. But they would be terrified together, there to comfort the other to their deaths, if it came to that.

“I’m so glad I got to see you at least one more time.” Keith’s eyes were filled with tears. Lance would have expected them to be ones of grief, over their time that would soon come to an end, but they were the opposite. These were the happiest tears Lance had ever seen any fairy shed. “I thought that they had taken you away from me forever.”

“I would’ve found a way back.” Lance felt himself pulling as far on his chains as they would go, Keith doing the same, so that they were side by side. They rested their hands on their legs, refusing to let go. “There is not a chance in this world that I would let you die alone.”

 

“You think that’s where we’re headed?” Keith looked up at the lamp above them. He seemed tempted to light it, wondering if his aim was good enough to throw one up and into it. He wouldn’t. He never wanted to use his powers again. He would never admit this to Lance but the water fairy had already caught onto it, not wanting to push him any further than he already had. “To be executed?”

Lance shrugged. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to the life beside him. To the moments that they shared and the ones that he wanted to share with him in the future. To his lullabies and stories, ones that would never be the same if anybody else told them. To his indigo eyes with the sky held inside of them, galaxies that he hadn’t finished exploring. There was only so much that Lance knew about Keith. There were the things that he was eager to share, things that Shiro had most likely known in the time he spent with him. Then there were the things that Lance had learned in the moments that Keith had let his guard down. How easily that his heart could break, as fragile as glass. How wonderous he thought the world was, despite the pessimism that he seemed to surround his thoughts with. 

Lance wasn’t going to give up on wishing just quite yet. He would never give up on the optimism that he’d carried with himself throughout every moment of his life. There had been times that it had been challenged. When Allura had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in Lance romantically, when he had almost lost Keith to one of his stupid mistakes, when Pidge had betrayed them and he thought he was a goner right there and then. Lance had survived horrors that many other fairies who were faced with them would have let themselves die in. They wouldn’t have had the strength to push themselves through, the ability to latch onto any bit of light that would ignite a flame big enough to keep their life afloat. Lance wouldn’t let his optimism die out now. Not when Keith didn’t have the strength in himself to light one to keep them warm. Lance would carry the scars they had made until his death and even after but they would never stop him from playing with fire.

“I don’t know.” Lance said, being honest. “I can’t know the future but I can know that there is always some hope. They might change their minds. We might be able to escape.”

“I wish I could think like you.” Keith let himself lean his head on Lance’s shoulder, who leaned his head on top of his.“I don’t think we have any more ways to escape them. We’ve done all that we can.”

“We just have to hope that it’s enough.”

Keith sighed, “I guess we do.”

“How long do you think we’ve been in here?” Lance asked. 

It was strange that neither of them had been awake when the other had up until this point. A part of Lance wondered if they had set it up to be that way. That whatever they were sneaking into their water was given to them at different times, so that one of them would be awake while the other slept. It wouldn’t be like whoever was keeping them captive to mess up and if they did, Lance was sure the change would be corrected soon. The Black Hoods didn’t seem like the kind of group to mess around with having a single mishap among any of their plans. How long this routine had been going on, Lance didn’t know. He doubted that Keith knew but maybe he’d been one step ahead of Lance. He could’ve made markings on his wall every time he had woken up or left a bit of his food somewhere every time they left it for him to eat. What length of time they would represent would be unclear but it would be better than being left in the dark when it came to that.

“No clue.” Keith replied. “I didn’t bother to keep track since it didn’t feel right to.”

Lance nodded, knowing well what he meant. There had come a point, after the first few times he’d awoken, that he wondered why he even bothered to wake up at all. What was the point of living his life out in confinement if there was nothing to mark the meaning to his days? All that he could do was sit and wait for something to happen, whether it be for an escape plan to come to him or someone coming to take him away. Anything happening meant that his life was progressing, whether it be for the better or worse. Lance had felt like he had lost everything without Keith. All of the things that he used to live for paled in comparison to the fairy that was always on his mind. Lance had spent so many of his days living for adventure. Now he lived for Keith.

“Have you thought of any way to escape?”

“No.” Keith pushed his head deeper into Lance’s shoulder. It seemed like he wanted to disappear into him, into the one person who’d made him feel safe. “I looked around but my chains are too short to reach anywhere near the cell bars. They made it so big yet it still feels so suffocating. I guess any sort of confinement is enough to drive someone insane, huh?”

“I guess.” Lance looked down at their hands. It was a comforting thought that Keith’s hand was there for him to hold whenever he needed one. “I tried looking around myself but there isn’t a crack or hole in sight. Those Black Hoods seriously don’t want us escaping.”

“I can barely even remember how they kidnapped us.” 

“I can.” Lance admitted. “They knocked us both out. They got you first, since you were putting up such a fight. I thought you almost had them, too. Once you were down, then they got Allura. Shiro went next and finally, me. I wish they had put me out first. Seeing everyone else struggle wasn’t exactly the kindest to my head.”

“You’ve been having nightmares too?” Keith asked, as if the possibility of Lance having them was impossible.

“Almost every time I shut my eyes to sleep.”

Lance wanted to tell them that they were all about him. How he couldn’t save Keith from the Black Hoods, no matter how many scenarios they were put into, but he didn’t want to disturb their time together. So he let them sit in silence, wondering what exactly was running through Keith’s mind. How scared was he of having to face that fact that he would have to leave him behind? How many nightmares had he been having? Were there any last minute regrets that came flooding into his mind, things that he’d never be able to correct? Every question brought about more heartbreak. Lance knew Keith was the type of fairy to blame himself for everything. To feel as if he were responsible for a flower dying when he had no abilities to help save it. Keith would never see how much light he brought to Lance’s life amidst the pain that he caused him. He would never know that he didn’t see the scars as suffering he had brought to him but as a reminder of how negligent he was of other people’s feelings.

“Do you ever wish that we hadn’t met?”

Keith was silent. Lance instantly regretted asking that question. It made it seem like he didn’t care about Keith, like he wanted him to have gone looking for Shiro on the day that he had made the trip down to the creek and most likely get killed in the process. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. All Lance had meant by it was that there was a chance that Keith could have found Shiro and brought him back to the outside. They could have peacefully lived out the rest of their lives on the outside, without ending up like they were now. Lance would be lying to himself if he didn’t say that he didn’t regret a moment of it. It might’ve been selfish of him. It might’ve made it seem like he took Keith’s life for granted. But Lance didn’t care. Keith was a risk that he had taken, the biggest one of them all. Despite its sour outcome, what had come out of it was something that Lance would never trade for the world.

Something that he would never trade for his life.

“I don’t wish that at all.” Keith’s voice turned to that of the one that he used to tell stories. Lance closed his eyes, a habit he’d developed when Keith had told them to him. “I just wish that we had met sooner. If we could have been the ones to reunite the fairies born of laughter and the fairies born of screams, all with a kiss or us holding each other’s hands. We have the strength within us to bring world’s together. I know that we do. It’s just that, we’ve been so busy hiding that we never got the chance to prove them wrong. That’s all that I can see as the one mistake we made. Not that we met in the first place but that we never did anything with it, aside from breaking our hearts by being cowards.”

“You two sure are cowards alright.”

Their heads snapped up and turned around, only to see Pidge standing there. She was shrouded in a black cloak, just like the one that Allura had worn to protect Lance. The hood was set down, resting on her shoulders and behind her in a wrinkled lump of fabric. How many fairies had seen ones just like her, coming to kidnap them in the middle of the night before anyone could even respond to what was happening to them, was a number that Lance didn’t like to think about. Those cloaks had brought about nothing but fear. They had stolen some of the greatest fairies of their time and led them off to their deaths or wherever they were now. Whoever wore them had sold a part of themselves to something darker than death itself, an organization set on eliminating every best aspect of fairy life that existed.

“And you’re not a coward yourself?” Lance hissed, turning his whole body around to face her. “That sure is gutsy of you to say about us, when all you do is hide underneath that hood of yours. Tell me. Does it feel good to have us trapped like this now? To have betrayed your own friends?”

“I didn’t betray you!” Pidge grabbed onto the cell bars, so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “I didn’t betray any of you! All of you betrayed the rest of fairy kind! You fell in love with him, a monster who has the power to hurt everyone. He even hurt you, from what Allura told me! You went against everything our ancestors fought against to keep our generation safe. There’s nothing cowardly about wanting to protect the lives we lost in that war.”

“As if you’d know anything about that.” Lance grumbled.

Pidge didn’t comment on that. Instead she let go of the bars, letting herself regain her composure. For someone so small, it was a wonder to Lance how she possessed so much life. She could go from excitable to business in not even a second and still have enough energy left to revert herself back to her original state. Lance wondered if that’s what the Black Hoods had seen in her. The ability to have a powerful liar at their fingertips, one who could adapt her personality to fit the situation she was in. Her interrogation skills must’ve also played a role in her being able to join them. That ability to change her personality came with the ability to scare, flatter, or even bribe someone into giving her information. She would be able to fill in all of the missing links that they needed during investigations single handedly, scouting out reports of fairies that were out of the ordinary without giving it a second thought. What a cruel ability to have, Lance thought, to be able to take advantage of anyone into selling out their friends, their coworkers, or even themselves.

“I stopped by to tell you that your trial is next week.” She let her wings down so that she fell to the floor, Lance noticing how sickly the green in them truly looked. “Allura and Shiro will be there too but that’s when you can plead your case or whatever. As if you have one that they’ll believe to be convincing enough to change their minds into letting you live. If you’re believed to be guilty, you’ll be executed, so do whatever you have to do to say goodbye.”

With that, she turned around and flew away, but not before she shot a glare at Keith. Lance shot one right back at her, which is what sent her off for good. The nerve that she had to come to them and act like they were the ones in the wrong. Keith specifically. Whatever Allura had told Pidge about the accident had obviously painted Keith in a bad light. Even if it hadn’t, Pidge had made him out to be that way. It was true that the scars on Lance’s skin were caused by his magic but what about Keith’s? Allura had buried an arrow right into his chest and all Pidge cared about was where Lance had gotten his own scars. Wounds healed. That was where scars came from. Every fairy, young and old, had some. Whether they be physical or mental, they existed within them somewhere. The motivation behind the accident that had caused them was what made it good or bad, not what had caused them at face value.

Lance found his way back to Keith, placing one of his cuffed hands on his shoulder. He was sitting still, not showing any signs of wanting to move. Lance didn’t care. He would sit with him as long as they were awake. If Keith didn’t want to talk anymore today, so be it. They had other days to speak to each other, other times that they would be awake to spend talking about whatever they wished. There was something that Lance had to tell him, to make up for the inconsiderate nature of the question that he had asked. There was no reason for Keith to be as honest with Lance as he was without getting an answer of equal honesty himself. Lance found himself wrapping both of his arms around the other fairy, careful to not cut his arms on his wings. Keith wrapped his own arms around Lance, who positioned himself so that he could whisper what he’d meant to say before Pidge had interrupted them in his ear.

“I would never wish that we hadn’t met.” Lance kissed just below Keith’s ear, feeling him shiver in his arms. “I could never wish for such a thing. All that I meant by that was that I didn’t want you to get hurt. If I hadn’t dragged you into this mess, by meeting you, by coming back to the forest after, then neither of us would have scars right now. Maybe we would have gotten some in other ways, but I don’t think there would be as many.”

“Maybe there wouldn’t have been.” Lance could feel Keith’s weight pressing against him, drowsiness taking its toll. “Maybe our skin would be pristine, without a single mark on it. We give scars in life and we take them ourselves. There isn’t a way to escape them. Before we met, I had none. I’d rather have earned mine in a way that meant protecting the one person who saved me from a lifetime of infinitely more scars than I’d ever be able to count than had something meaningless steal it away.”

“What if the scars had been from saving Shiro?”

“They wouldn’t have felt the same.”

Lance felt himself giving into the soothing dimness of the light above him, letting go of their embrace so that they could lay near each other. The chain wouldn’t extend far enough for them to be directly next to each other but that didn’t stop them from improvising with the next best thing. They grabbed onto each others hands, curling their bodies underneath of them so that they would be warm. There was enough give to let their foreheads touch, just enough comfort to send both of them to sleep without so much as a whisper of the nightmares that had plagued their dreams the night before. 

\------------------------------

“Can I show you something?”

Keith asked in the middle of their breakfast. Or lunch. Or even dinner. Neither of them knew what time it was so they considered every meal breakfast, since the only time they ate was when they awoke. Today they had given them blueberry muffins. Keith’s favorite, as Lance had learned. The water fairy wiped the crumbs off of his lips with his hand, now used to the heaviness of the cuff around his wrist. He pushed their half eaten muffins and still full glasses of water aside, clearing the space between them. Whatever it was that Keith was about to show him Lance assumed he needed space for. He nodded once he was ready, situating himself so that his palms were pressed into the floor behind his back. It felt great to stretch every once in a while, like his body was able to be free for a single moment in time.

“Close your eyes.”

Lance did. In almost an instant, a strong smell wafted up to his nose. It was the smell of fire, of it eating something up with its ravenous flames. He allowed himself a small smile. Keith had worked up enough courage to use his powers again. It might have been one of the last times he would ever use them, Lance thought. He wondered if he had tried to melt his chains one day to see if he could escape. They seemed to be made of a metal Lance had never seen before, one that was strong enough to resist anything, even Keith’s wings. No matter how much they brushed against them, no scratches appeared on the pristine metallic of the links that made up their chains. Lance was tempted to open his eyes, to see just exactly what Keith was burning, but he fought the urge. It was something that Keith had asked of him. The least Lance could do was listen.

“Okay,” Lance could practically hear him grinning. “You can open them.”

Lance put his hands over his mouth so that he wouldn’t gasp. It was unbelievable. Was it even real? Lance had to run his fingers across the lines to make sure, pressing down on them as if they would disappear like dust. They didn’t. He traced over them again and again. Keith watched Lance with a regretful sort of look, as if he’d meant to do this sooner. Whether it be as a romantic gesture on some big evening he had planned for the two of them or to engrave a part of the inside world into his home on the outside, Lance knew not. All that he knew was that this was something that must’ve taken Keith weeks of practice, coming from a background of knowing nothing about the inside fairy culture. It was amazing, Lance thought, that someone had bothered to do this for him.

“Where did you learn how to write my name?” Lance looked up at him, snapping out of his skepticism.

Keith chuckled, “You taught me, remember?”

“I did?”

Lance would have remembered that. They had continued their lessons since the first time they had started them that one day in his notebook, though Lance would have remembered teaching Keith how to write his name. He had taught him other words. Red and blue, light and dark, night and day. Simple things that required little more than memorization. The characters of the inside fairies’ writing weren’t easy to memorize. They stood for sounds more so than strict letters, which meant that it was almost always impossible to tell how long a word was going to end up being written out as. The language that Shiro and Keith had made up was completely different. A single character stood for a single word. Having to switch from that mindset to the one of Lance’s language had been tough but, judging from the writing on the floor, Keith had learned well.

“Well,” Keith proceeded to write his own name next to Lance’s, with the tip of his finger burning against the stone. “You didn’t exactly teach me directly but I learned all of the characters from you.”

“I guess that I taught you something from the inside after all.”

“You taught me a lot more than that.” Keith continued writing. He had left just enough space in between the two of their names for another word. Lance watched as he filled it in, his heart dropped when he realized what it said. “Did I spell that right?”

Loves.

Lance loves Keith.

Lance couldn’t respond. Everything he thought about saying instantly got caught in his throat, replaced by the racing of his heart that sent his head spinning. Keith had learned what love meant from him. Lance had been the fairy who had taught him what it meant to wake up in the morning with someone to look forward to. Someone who made you feel safe, while pushing you outside of your comfort zone. Someone who made you let your guard down without realizing it, exposing all of your vulnerabilities for them to see. Someone who gave you the strength to take their own aching heart and mend it with your own, amplifying your good traits tenfold. Love was what drove the strongest of warriors into battle, what gave them a reason to fight. Teaching love to Keith was something that meant more than he’d ever know.

So Lance nodded and pulled their plates back towards them, resuming his eating in silence.

\------------------------------------

Lance had woken up before Keith today.

He pushed their glasses of water aside like they had been doing since yesterday, so that whatever was in it wouldn’t affect them. It felt to Lance like whatever they were using wasn’t something that they had an abundance of. The way it had made him feel had been lethargic, as if his mind was sending out messages to his nerves for his body to move faster than he was capable of. Without the water, he felt better. Lance could sense more of the world around him, almost enough to hear one of the songs that he used to. He could taste more, smell more, hear more. It was almost as if whatever was in it was something to take that observantness away from him, so that he was unaware of what was truly going on around him. His nightmares were no longer there, though he had to give Keith credit for that one. 

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Lance nudged Keith with his plate, placing it down in front of him. He perked up right away, happy to get another meal. “It’s time for breakfast.”

“I wonder what meal everyone out there is eating right now.” Keith grinned, taking a bite of his pie. Pumpkin. Lance’s favorite. “What do you think?”

“My bet’s on lunch.” Lance took a giant bite, eating almost half of his slice. “What do you think?”

“Dinner.” Keith looked over at their glasses of water. His lips were dry, Lance noticed, with skin threatening to peel off in all sorts of places. “Do you think just a sip would hurt? I could use some water right about now.”

Lance took one of the glasses in his hands. They wouldn’t be able to last the whole week without it. It had already been one day, and they were feeling the affects of it. Dehydration wasn’t something that they could risk facing when they were on their way to execution. Dying in this cell meant giving up entirely on everything that they had tried to fight for. It meant not giving themselves a chance to fight again, a battle that they weren’t nearly done with. Water wasn’t going to be the thing that ended it, no matter how drugged it may have been. Drinking half of it couldn’t hurt them, right? That way, whatever was in it would have less of an affect on their sleeping patterns and they would be able to sustain themselves a bit longer. Lance passed him his glass and took his own in his hands, stopping Keith from drinking before he could speak.

“Only drink half of it.” Lance said, hand still over the top of Keith’s glass. “I don’t know what’s in this stuff but it can’t be good for us. Minimizing how much of it goes into us is going to be our best bet.”

“Alright.” Keith did as he was told, stopping a little before he hit halfway.

“There’s something that’s been on my mind.” Lance said, after finishing off the half of his own. “I know that you don’t know my friends that well but did you expect them to betray us?”

“If I’m being honest,” Keith looked up at the ceiling. Lance noticed how natural the embers that he gazed upon looked reflected in his eyes. It was as if they were always there, disguised in his irises violet hue. “I didn’t. After I got to know you, I didn’t like to think that way about them.”

“What way?”

Keith thought about it for a moment. Lance had no idea that he had influenced his view of the inside fairies that drastically. From the way that he talked about his friends around him to how much he’d hurt him, it seemed practically impossible for Keith to have such a positive view on people. His pessimistic tendencies didn’t help any, either. It might have been the fact that Lance knew them on a more personal level. Keith had only ever heard stories about the inside, other than the day they had cast him out into the woods. Even then, Lance betted that he had grown to learn what it was that they were afraid of. Keith had told him to his face that he even agreed with them. It might’ve been that, Lance thought, Keith had such a negative view of himself that their ideas that he was a monster seemed to confirm it for him.

“That every single one of them was as horrible as you made them out to be.” Keith’s hand found his way into Lance’s own, squeezing tightly onto it. “You were nice so I figured that your friends had to have some sort of niceness in them. Nice people don’t befriend others without seeing something good in them. I thought that they hated me for who I was, which is understandable. I can hardly control my powers when I’m nervous so it made sense for them to fear or fight against me. What I didn’t expect was for them to hate someone like you. That’s when I knew that they were worse than I had imagined.”

Keith looked at Lance, “Except for Allura.”

“Allura?”

“She really cares about you, Lance.” Keith smiled at the thought of it, something that Lance couldn’t imagine himself doing now when he thought about her. “She helped me save you that night at the edge of the forest. All of her cruelness was an act, a way to stall them into leaving. She saved me so that I could help save you. You have to give her some credit.”

“But she almost killed you.” Lance whispered, not wanting Keith to know how much this conversation upset him. “She practically ripped me right out of your arms and almost took your life away from me. I don’t care if it was meant to save me or not. I don’t want to think about her.”

“You loved her once though, didn’t you?”

Hearing that question come out of Keith’s mouth sounded wrong. There was a tone to it that Lance knew well. It was that weakness when you lost at something, the voice that you took on when you were trying to cover up your insecurities with a false sense of strength. Keith couldn’t possibly think that he stilled love Allura, could he? Lance had kissed him, held his hand, been there for him in every possible way that he could when he could. There had been times that he’d messed up, ones that he would never be able to erase, but none of them meant that Lance loved Keith any less. If anything, it meant that he loved him more. Lance rarely made mistakes. Most of them that he made had to do with his arrogance, a trait of his that showed up only when he was madly, hopelessly in love. Keith had been no exception to this rule.

“The keyword there being ‘once’.” 

Lance pulled Keith’s face to his own, pressing their lips together. There wasn’t a chance that he was letting him second guess what they had. He shifted his hand so that it pressed against the scar on his chest, refusing to move his hand even when Keith tried to push it away. Lance loved everything about Keith. Even the ugly. He pulled away from their kiss, pulling down Keith’s shirt to place one instead upon the rough skin where Allura had shot him. It felt almost like a goodbye kiss to the love that they could have had, the fairy he could have ended up with. One that he had no regrets letting go of, no matter how kind she had been to him. Allura was the past. Keith was the present and the future. Lance had no doubts about that. Not a single one.

“I’m not ever going back to her.” Lance confirmed. “I’m not going to leave you for anybody. I can promise you that.”

“I believe you.” Keith kissed him once more, soft and true. “There’s nobody else who could ever make me leave you. I promise.”

\-----------------------------------

“Do you miss the outside world?” Keith asked when they had awoken next.

Today they had been given vanilla scones. As they’d done yesterday, each of them drank half of their glasses of water to wash the crumbly dry dough down their throats. The side effects had significantly decreased using this method. The lethargy wasn’t as strong and their senses remained as sharp as normal. They may have been dulled slightly, like a knife that had been used once or twice without being sharpened again, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. The two of them seemed perkier. As perky as they could be, given their circumstances. Nobody seemed to ever stop by to relight their lamp, which made Lance wonder when exactly it was lit to begin with so that the embers happened to be burning in it when they awoke.

“Absolutely.” Lance replied, tapping his fingers against the edge of his plate. “It was home.”

“It did feel like that, didn’t it?” Lance noticed the tinge of pink that overtook the other fairy’s cheeks, who looked down at the ground to try to hide it. His hair wasn’t enough to cover it, though. Lance could see right through it. “With how warm the inside of the shelter was.”

“And how many books there were on the shelves.” Lance gestured to the empty space around them, as if they were filled with books. “I know they weren’t tons but they were worn down like they’d been loved. It made it feel like someone actually lived in it.”

“And the baskets full of berries we left beside the door.” Keith laughed, as if reliving the moments they’d spent back there. “Remember the time that you accidentally collected those poisonous berries and I dumped them out right in front of you?”

“I worked hard climbing through those thorny bushes to get them!” Lance huffed, crossing his arms. “If only you had given me better directions, then we wouldn’t have had to go and get more!”

“This is why I had to lead you out of the forest that day.” Keith was laughing harder now, in a way that Lance had never seen before. How was it that them waiting out the days until their deaths had made so many different aspects of themselves come out? “You have a horrible sense of direction.”

Lance wanted to deny this, but he couldn’t. It had been one of his faults when he had worked on the inside. They always had to give him maps if he wanted to go out somewhere further. When it came to adventuring, Lance finding his way home was merely a matter of time. It was why he had to set aside weekends that he could go out and explore, so that he would account for the time it took for him to fly around and try to find any sort of area that he could use to base where the center of Maple Grove was off of. Lance never minded. It gave him more time to listen to the world sing and sing along with it, to watch all of the animals that started to awaken in the dusk, ones that he never saw after a long day’s work. Taking chances to go to places Lance had never been before had led him to Keith. He was grateful that his map had blown away in the wind that day. Otherwise, he never would’ve found something that needed discovering on his own.

“Do you want to know my favorite thing about your place?”

“Our place,” Keith corrected, “But go on.”

“Right,” Lance felt his lips tugging into a smile. “Our place. What I loved so much about it was how secluded it was. It was like we had the whole outside world to ourselves, you know? It felt like we were kings or something, ruling our own lands from our humble shack in the center of it all.”

“That’s our home alright.” Keith wrapped one of his arms around Lance’s, placing a kiss on his shoulder. “A shack in the woods.”

“The best shack in the woods.” Lance kissed Keith’s cheek. 

“The only home we’ll ever know.”

\------------------------------------------

“I’m getting sick of all of these pastries.” Lance complained, finishing off the cornbread they’d given them that day. “Where’s the soup? I could go for some mushroom garlic right now.”

“That would ruin your breath.” Keith chuckled, setting down his glass. “And I’d be the only one who’d have to live with it.”

Lance rolled his eyes, looking down at the chains that had settled themselves into his lap. The air seemed to be getting heavier as time passed. Not as if it were humid or anything. What hung in the air around them was dread, one that had begun to suffocate the two of them, as if it were what the Black Hoods had planned on using to execute them. They had such little time to spend together. So few hours to talk about what they had left to say to each other. There were things that they might not ever say that they wanted to. Lance knew this well. He had been trying to make the most out of the past few days, which he thought had turned out pretty well. Keith seemed to appreciate it, the two of them talking the whole day away until they were worn out from the lack of proper meals that they’d been given. It was the least Lance could do to repay him for everything.

“What do you want to do when we get out of here?” Lance took Keith’s hands in his own, trying to let his own optimism spread to Keith. It didn’t seem to be working. If anything, his face seemed more sullen than it had before. “Anything.”

“Lance, you can’t be serious.” Keith’s voice broke, him struggling to cover it up with another sentence. “You and I both know the odds of us making it out of here alive.”

“We’ve got to start hoping somewhere, don’t we?” 

Lance had spent his whole life hoping for things. Hoping that Allura felt the same way about him. Hoping that there would be less work for him and his friends to do, so that they could hang out together more. Hoping that he could protect Keith when he barely had the strength to protect himself. Hoping that one day, the minds of fairies would change so that Keith could be accepted into the inside world that he so admired from a distance. Hope seemed to have gotten him nowhere at first glance. All that it brought about was more heartbreak in the end when these things hadn’t come true. That may have been a part of the truth, but not all of it. Lance learned from each and every time that his wishes didn’t come true, that his optimism failed him. He learned that, despite anything, he would move past it. He would learn how to keep going when it seemed that the world was against him. It was something that he wished to teach Keith, though he knew it was practically impossible.

What was it that made someone want to swap their personality completely with the one that they loved? Lance had asked this question to himself multiple times, when Keith was at his worst, pessimism wise. If Lance could just trade his own optimism for that, his own way of viewing the world, so that Keith didn’t have to see things the way that he did, he would without hesitation. Lance wished that he could give him confidence, too, so that Keith would stop viewing himself in such a negative light. But the water talent had little of that to give. His confidence was false, faked to hide a multitude of emotions that he didn’t want anyone finding. Keith was one of the only ones who had seen parts of this vulnerable side, more than anyone else ever had. Lance wished that it didn’t exist. That he could say what he said about himself and truly mean it. Though he thought, no one fairy could be one hundred percent confident in themselves. If they were, they wouldn’t admit to messing up, and where would the world be if everyone was like that?

“If we make it out here alive,” Keith thought about it for a second, trying to blink back tears that he knew were forming. “I want to call you my love.”

“That’s all?” Lance was surprised. It was such a simple thing to want, yet it seemed to mean the world to Keith, with the way his eyes sparkled. “To call me your love?”

“I was going to save this for further down the road.” Keith sighed, shaking his head as if to dismiss any doubts that he had about what he was about to say. “But there’s no point in waiting when we don’t have much time left to spare.”

Keith took Lance’s hands in his own, placing a kiss atop each of them.

“Lance.” Keith began, looking him straight in the eyes, like the warrior Lance knew was inside of him. “This past month and a bit has been something that I could have never predicted. I was hesitant at first about trusting you but you’ve far more than earned it. You have my trust, you have my heart, and you have my love. I don’t think that I could ever say that to anyone else. Which is why I have something to ask you.”

Lance felt himself pale, realizing what Keith was about to ask. It made him sick to his stomach, wishing that he could block it out, but there wasn’t any way to. Was this what a proposal was supposed to feel like? So nerve wracking that you wanted to throw up? Lance wouldn’t know. He hadn’t considered the thought that one day he might have to propose to Allura if he ended up with her. It wasn’t something that he felt he needed to do to prove his love to someone. If Lance loved them, he would love them one hundred percent. He would give their relationship his all and the person he was with all of his attention. Marriage was the next step. Something that felt almost wrong for the way things were right now. All that they would be was engaged. Never married truly, only in their minds. Lance didn’t care the more he thought about it. What it meant was that Keith had been planning on spending the rest of his life with Lance. He hadn’t once considered that there might be someone else out there that would stumble along and he’d fall in love with them instead. Keith wanted Lance to be his forever.

Lance wanted Keith to be his forever, too.

“If we make it out of here alive,” Keith wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, hitting his tooth with one of the chains. Both of them laughed after Lance had checked them to make sure that none of them were chipped. Even if they had been, Lance would’ve thought it was cute. He would’ve thought that anything about Keith was cute. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” Lance threw his arms around Keith and wrapped him in a hug, letting him cry on his shoulder. “Of course I will.”

\-----------------------------------

“Do we have to say goodbye?” Keith asked, after they’d been lying down next to each other for a while.

Whenever they did, their hands were always held between the two of them, foreheads pressed against each other. Being that close was enough. They didn’t have to raise their voices that loud to speak nor did they have to speak at all. Sometimes, listening to each other breathing was enough. Knowing that they were still there, still letting oxygen into their lungs, meant enough. Talking was hard. It was hard when they knew that they had too many things that they wanted to share with each other. Things that took years for fairies to find out about one another. Some of them were things that you wouldn’t even find out unless you knew somebody for that long. There was a certain level of trust that they had built up with each other. What they wanted to say wasn’t a matter of trust, rather a matter of how the other person would react, which made it risky at a time when they were close to being no more.

Saying goodbye meant that it all would end. That there would be no more second chances for them to try and live on. Lance didn’t want to. He wouldn’t be able to. He’d thought about it once, when he thought that Keith was dead and he hadn’t said anything to him before. Back then, Lance felt like Keith hadn’t understood how deep his love ran for him. That his doubts were too numerous for Lance to think about, him wishing that he had relieved him of at least some of them. It was always about Keith. Everything that he thought was always about him. Lance didn’t know if he should be worried or overjoyed that someone made him feel this way again. After Allura, Lance hadn’t wanted to fall in love with anyone else. There was no one who sparked a connection with him that felt anywhere similar to what they had had. That was, until Keith had come along. Lance refused to let go of that.

“We don’t.” Lance rubbed his nose against Keith’s, who did the same. “I don’t want us to make it seem like this is it. Like there won’t be a tomorrow. We still have at least tomorrow left. Let’s just wait and see what happens then.”

Keith nodded, leaning up to kiss Lance’s forehead. Lance wanted to cry. He wanted to tell Keith how much he was going to miss all of this. All of these moments that they spent together, doing nothing and everything all at once. He wanted to rip their chains out of the ground and throw them away to get them out of their prison. But he couldn’t do any of this. He had to stay calm and keep his chin up for Keith’s sake. He couldn’t have the dark haired fairy leaving this world with any regrets. Lance would bare them all, take them on himself, before he dared to give them to Keith. Keith had his own set of things that Lance knew he was going to miss about everything. He just didn’t know that Lance had the same ones too, and that his own optimism was fading fast, threatening to burn out at any moment.

So Lance simply smiled and held onto Keith’s hand tighter, hoping tomorrow would be a better day.

\----------------------------------------

"Hey, Keith?" Lance asked, wanting the aching in his chest to end.

"Yeah?"

Lance hesitated for a moment. He wondered if he should even say what had been on his mind for the past couple of weeks. Words that kept forming in his throat, only to be shoved aside by some mundane comment or nothing at all. A phrase so small that he neglected to let it slip into any one of their conversations, when the weight it held was monumental. Would it be crueler to let them out into the world, on the day that could very well mark their parting, or keep them shoved inside? It tore his heart up to shreds every time he missed the chance to say them. Lance took a breath in. It must've hurt Keith more to have never heard the words he wanted to say in his life. The ones that he’d been hinting at, though Lance never took the bait to say them. It was now or never.

"I love you."

Keith stroked his hair, "I love you, too."

"I'm sorry." Lance said right afterwards, unable to keep it in.

"For what?"

"For waiting so long to tell you."

Keith smiled sadly, "You even telling me at all means more than enough."

"Why?"

"Because now I can die knowing that what I thought we had wasn't an illusion. That I wasn't faking myself out into believing that this was something that it wasn't. Even if I die, someone loves me, and that someone's love for me will never die. So I'll always be a part of the inside world."

Lance finally broke. He let his tears stream down his cheeks, unable to see Keith’s reaction. He no longer cared about being strong. He no longer cared to make it seem like he thought that they were going to be okay. There was no hope for them after all. No light at the end of the tunnel, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Hope hurt. Hope had torn Lance’s heart to shreds, more than he could repair. Keith tried his best to wipe Lance’s tears away, pulling him as close as he could. Lance held on tighter, as if Keith were dying right then. Lance didn’t want to have to face the fact that at some point, Keith wouldn’t be there for him to hold. That he wouldn’t be there for Keith to hold. That there would be no more ‘I love you’’s or kisses or anything of the sort. 

That the songs Lance had longed to sing with Keith would never exist again, taken with them to their graves.


	13. Chapter 13

Lance was clutching onto Keith’s arm as if it were the last thing keeping him tethered to this world.

Pidge had given them the mercy of letting them walk to the courtroom without chains weighing them down. They came off surprisingly easy, with a tool no bigger than the tinker talent’s fingernail used to set the two free of their restraints. The moment they were, Lance had rushed to Keith’s side. The two of them stood there embracing for a moment, only for Pidge to cough and interrupt it. Lance couldn’t tell if it was a cough or a feeble attempt at a fake gag but, either way, she wasn’t about to wait around for them any more. She had slid their cell door open with ease, motioning for them to follow her up endless winding staircases and down corridors that felt as if they were closing in on Lance. Pidge attempted to squeeze herself between them, to push them apart before the trial began. The water talent refused to have any of it.

“If you keep doing that,” Lance would begin, eyeing her as she deserved to be. As something less than the dirt beneath their feet, for even that offered them crops that they needed to survive. “You might get cut by Keith’s wings.”

“So?” Pidge would stop them for a moment, crossing her arms as she turned back and forth from Lance to Keith. “Any injuries you cause me I can write off as yet another one of the acts of treason you’ve committed against Maple Grove.”

“And you think that the scars won’t fade?” Lance would try to break away from Keith, only for him to pull him back. “You’ll carry a piece of him with you, even after he’s gone. He won’t ever die as long as you live.”

The tinker talent would open her mouth to argue, only to pout and turn away instead. Lance would face Keith when her back was turned and grin up at him. The outsider could only manage to turn one side of his mouth into a smile, a forced one at that. Lance wondered if Keith thought the same thing about his own. If he noticed the way his cheeks twitched from the tightness of his muscles or how he breathed a sigh of relief when he was allowed to let it fall, back into the emotionless expression that Lance had on his face the entire time they walked (except for when Pidge aggravated him, then he seemed to bare imaginary fangs at her). Optimism was what he had to keep up, a trait that was close to failing on him. But no matter how much faking it took, Lance would keep it up, so that he could keep Keith’s smile around for as long as he could see it.

“Are Allura and Shiro going to be tried at the same time as us?” Lance spoke up after what seemed to be ten agonizing minutes of silence. There would be enough of that when he had no ability to hear anything anymore. “Or is it a couples only thing?”

Pidge glared at him, “Now isn’t the time to be making jokes.”

“I’m being serious.”

Truer words couldn’t have been spoken by the water talent at that moment. It was something that he had thought about, cooped up in his cell with Keith by his side, practically ever since they’d locked them inside. Trying them together meant that things would be easier on the Black Hoods end. They wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of seeing them as two separate pairs. Two separate cases of an unspeakable act of betrayal. In Lance’s opinion, that would be too unlike them. Seeing them as individuals meant listening to testimonies from different fairies at times that they might only have them for for today. Putting in effort to bring them back, to schedule another event just to prolong the torture, would be cruel even for them. Their organization valued efficiency, not torture. It didn’t matter to them if they suffered more or less, as long as their rebellious sparks could be snuffed out before they spread to bits of tinder that happened to be laying around. Fire wasn’t meant to be played with, in their eyes.

Yet that very act had led Lance straight into a certain fairy’s life.

“Why don’t you take a look for yourselves?” Pidge posed to them, as she opened a door.

The courtroom was too bright for a place that gave out death sentences left and right.

The pathway that they had taken had, no doubt, been an entrance specifically built for prisoners to enter through. The dangerous, the wicked, and the rebellious. Pidge pushed them inside, careful to avoid Keith’s wings. Up in the judge’s seat sat Coran. He carried nothing but a hardness to his face, as if his muscles had forgotten how to smile years ago. Chairs sat on either side of them, filled with fairies who met Keith and Lance with fearful stares. Candles lined the walls, which were painted an equally warm shade of orange. It reminded Lance of the leaves that fell through the sky in the fall, as the seasons changed from a mild frost to a chill that no fairy could shake from their wings. 

That was another tale, told to the humans, that was entirely false. Fairies assisted in bringing the seasons to the land but the areas dictated to each season were only in Pixie Hollow. On the outskirts, seasons affected them just as much as the real world. It was why they worked as hard as they did year round, to ensure that they had precisely what they needed in order to survive through the months where their wings would become brittle if they stayed out in the frost for longer than they could handle. It had happened countless times before, to ones who thought they could brave the storm without facing any consequences. That was all that Maple Grove was, in essence. A place in which consequences outweighed the rewards, no matter what they may have been.

To the right at the front of the room sat the witness stand, where a choir of gasps let out from the crowd the moment the two of them made even the slightest notion of eye contact with them. Lance held tighter to Keith’s arm but quickly loosened his grip after he realized that the fire talent was shaking. You wouldn’t notice it if you looked at him. All that you would see, all that the fairies chattering anxiously about in the corner of the room saw, would be a fairy who looked as frightening as the title they had given him sounded. With his cruel stare and his less than pleased scowl, it wouldn’t be a surprise if you couldn’t look past this gruffness and assume, as they were, that he was a monster.

But once you looked a little bit closer, you realized that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

That was the shield that he put up against the world. The one thing that had protected him all those days spent alone in the forest from coming in contact with any fairies that would dare to enter the woods. All of them would fly faster than the winds up on the mountaintops in winter to get away from him after catching a single glimpse of his shattered glass-like wings and locked jaw. What they would never get to see, what Lance had learned faster than any of them ever would, was what these attributes actually meant. Keith’s locked jaw was to keep himself from speaking, for he had difficulty starting conversations when they weren’t with someone he was already close to. That cruel stare was a result of him observing things critically, eyeing out a place that he could go where nobody would catch him. The scowl was how his lips rested when he wasn’t trying to smile, which is what made his nose twitch when he did. 

“It’s okay.” Lance whispered into Keith’s ear, shifting his arm so that he no longer held onto it. Their fingers were interlocked now. Neither of them were going to let go of each other until this trial was over and, even then, they wouldn’t give up without a fight. “You don’t have to keep pretending to be strong. I’m here to protect you.”

“But you’re too weak.” Keith replied. “You’d fall before I could even catch you.”

“You’re the one that’s meant to fight this war.” Lance squeezed tighter onto his hand as he said it. “Not me. I don’t mind being another casualty if I can die knowing that there’s someone strong enough to save Maple Grove.”

“Move it, you two.” Pidge rolled her eyes, pushing them further down the center of the room. “We don’t have all day and I, for one, don’t want to spent longer than I have to listening to your lovey dovey garbage.”

Lance turned back to shook her a look, only to stop midway when he noticed the look on Keith’s face. It was more distraught than the water talent had ever seen him. More than when he had explained to him where Shiro was and when they were up late, sobbing over the reality they had to face where Lance’s burns might end up taking his life combined. Keith tried his best to shake it off when he felt the water talent reach up and place his hand on his cheek. He no longer flinched when he felt the roughness of Lance’s palm on his scar-free skin, though he was still trying to work out how to blink the tears out of his eyes without concerning him. That was the last thing that Keith wanted right now, the last thing that he knew Lance wanted right now. The violet eyed fairy refused to let Lance feel like he was carrying enough strength for the two of them into this trial, so he flashed him a smile.

The exact same smile as the first one that Lance had ever seen of his.

The two of them made their way to the front of the room, with their heads held as high as they could hold them. Lance could feel himself threatening to break under the pressure of the eyes that followed him as he walked on Keith’s right. They seemed like hawks, stalking their prey without any hint of letting it go. The water talent averted his attention to something else. Laughter. A bright and joyous laughter, coming from a table somewhere out of their line of sight. The crowd that sat in the middle of the room was thick and heavy, like a fog of fairies that had descended from one of the most horrific storms Maple Grove had ever seen. This happiness pierced it, a beam of sunlight on such a dark day, immediately sending Lance back to the days that he had spent talking to this particular garden fairy, before the storm decided to rain on their parade. With a few more steps, the top of her head came into view, with hair as striking white as Lance had remembered. Before he could second guess it, he broke free from Keith’s grip, flying to her side on instinct. 

“Allura!” He cried, practically in tears. Behind him, he could feel Keith place a protective hand on his shoulder, which he didn’t object to. To her left sat another fairy with hair as white as hers, though it faded into a pitch black like a skunk. “Shiro!”

“Lance?” Allura’s eyes widened. She took a second to process seeing her close friend again, squishing him in a hug once the shock subsided. Once they let go after a few seconds, she noticed the violet eyes that peered from behind the water talent’s shoulder. “Have you been with Keith this entire time?”

“Yes.” Lance said, taking a seat beside her at their table. Four chairs had been set out behind it, one for each of the accused. Keith took the one next to him, filling it up completely. “Were you and Shiro together, too?”

“We certainly were.” She turned towards him and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close for a second before releasing her, after placing a kiss atop her head. “It was almost a blessing in its own peculiar way. Wouldn’t you two agree?”

Lance turned to Keith. The two of them eyed each other for a second, contemplating what to say. Getting to say goodbye to the one who you cherished more than your life itself was both a blessing and a curse. The upside to it was that now, their feelings were known to be mutual. They wouldn’t have to go to wherever it was that they led them off to to be executed without knowing if their feelings were one-sided. Lance knew that it had been childish of him to even consider for a second that what this was, wasn’t real. He had kissed Keith for heaven’s sake and he had still questioned it. But if all went well, they were to be wed once they made it out of here alive. Which was where the downside came in. All of their plans had a high probability of being scrapped. The future that they had created for themselves would come crumbling down at the hands of the Black Hoods, who would deem them guilty, no matter what they could say to convince them otherwise.

“I would.” Lance said anyway. For at the end of the day, he couldn’t deny that Keith had made waiting in that lonesome prison, well, less lonesome. He had filled that solitude with his warmth, which Lance felt in his chest even then. A bit of fire that had spread into his own heart, one that had been lit by someone else for a chance. “I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.” 

“I feel the same.” Keith said, letting Lance lean himself onto his shoulder.

“Five minutes to the trial!” Pidge shouted. She had been standing at the front of the room to witness all of their conversation, which hadn’t been a pleasure for her to see. “Witness accounts will begin at that time! Questions directed at the accused will occur promptly after, by both witnesses and myself.”

Nobody dared to speak now. All of their energy, the fighting spirits inside of them, had to be reserved for what could be their final battle. If this was the war that Shiro and Keith were brought into this world to fight, Allura and Lance would die protecting them. They already almost had, in ways that nobody in the courtroom knew but them. Coran eyed them from where he sat, raising an eyebrow as he watched Keith take one of Lance’s hands in his own. It arched even higher when he turned to look at the other two, where Allura was placing a kiss upon Shiro’s cheek. Unspeakable, he thought to himself. That was what they were. Fairies who were willing to throw away all that Maple Grove had fought to protect them from, to keep them safe when Pixie Hollow refused to come to their aid. 

“Pidge?” He called down to the tinker talent, who flew up to him eagerly. It was as if she’d been waiting for this day for years, as if it couldn’t have come sooner. “Are you sure this is going to work?”

Pidge was silent. She bit the inside of her cheek, not quite meeting her leader’s eyes. “I believe that it will.”

“Believing isn’t the same as knowing.”

Pidge could feel herself shrinking under his scrutiny. Her confidence was fragile to begin with, like the wings of her no longer friend. She turned to look back down at him and Keith for a moment and almost felt a hint of pity within herself. She shook her head to shake this whisper away, regaining the harsh exterior she had built up as a defense against this decaying world. There was a hope here today that Pidge could regain what she had once lost, to get the closure that she needed from what had been stolen from her all those months ago. Back when she joined the Black Hoods, without any of the others knowing. Back when she cried herself to sleep, pulling the covers above her head so that nobody would suspect a thing. Back when she locked herself up in her workshop, working day in and day out on anything but what she was assigned to do.

Work was secondary when it came to her mission. There had been no stronger feeling than she felt when she thought about what had happened to him, the entire reason that she was caught up in this mess. A mess that she was so desperately trying to make sense of, to find connections in that she believed to be there. Hiding right under her nose, hints to the fairy who had left an everlasting impression on both her and her life. They could play dumb all they wanted today. They could pretend like they had never heard his name before, like they hadn’t been the ones to torch his body and leave him outside of her doorstep, writhing in agony. His eyes were something that she saw every single day when she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the clear metal of a pot or pan. Someone down there had ruined her life.

Pidge wasn’t about to let them get away with that.

“We made a deal, remember?” Pidge could feel herself tensing up, having to take deep breaths to prevent herself from blowing up in Coran’s face. “If I can’t find out anything from them, I’ll never speak to you again. You’ll be able to keep all of my inventions. Is that correct?”

“I’m aware of the deal that we made but…” Coran’s skepticism was growing of the tinker talent. She was immature and arrogant, two of the attributes that made her one of the riskiest members of the Black Hoods. He had been searching for any way to kick her out of their group since her last few mishaps, though no opportunity had seemed as perfect as this one. “If this drags on too long, I’m going to cut it short.”

“You can’t!” Pidge protested. Rage threatened to burst out from her as it bubbled up in her chest, eating away at her heart like acid. “That wasn’t a part of the deal!”

“You’re holding onto a fantasy, a dream that can never be reached.” Coran motioned down to the two couples, both of which held solemn looks on their faces. “Not everyone gets a happily ever after.”

But I deserve one, was what Pidge wanted to shout back at him. She had thought that there was one in her future, when she met him. Everything seemed to fall into place, like that was the piece of the puzzle she was missing. Someone who she could be close to and honest without without any fear of rejection, for they were bound together by something more than love. When he had died, burned and scarred in a makeshift hospital bed she’d built just for him, all color drained from the world around her. The array of emotions she felt inside were intense, ravaging her body in ways that she didn’t know that her mind had the ability to. A happily ever after seemed to be a fair ending to her tale, after all of the suffering she’d endured. If it couldn’t be with him, she would make one with revenge. The one thing that she had held onto for so long, longer than she knew he would’ve wanted her to.

“I understand, sir.” Pidge mumbled, bowing her head in a gesture of respect. “Thank you for all that you’ve done.”

Coran almost smiled at her, “You’re the one that found them, not me. The Black Hoods had been trying to hunt them down for a while. We thank you for your service and devotion, and bid you farewell with the kindest of regards, should today be against your favor.”

“Everybody, take your seats and quiet down!” Pidge announced, flashing a wide grin back at Coran. A part of her knew that she would miss seeing him, having him to gain approval from. But now, it was showtime. And Pidge flew down to the ground to take her place as the lead role in this courtroom. “The trial will begin now!”

Lance looked up at her, snapping out of his daze. Two figures started to make their way to the area where witnesses could recount their stories. The water talent knew who they were immediately, struggling to keep his mouth shut. Marina and Delta, worse for wear than Lance had ever seen them, sat side by side behind Pidge and next to Coran’s judge’s desk. They each had puffy eyes, bright red from all of the tears Lance knew they had shed because of him. They were holding onto each other, supporting each other in each and every way that they could. He smiled softly over at them, only for the two of them to look down at their hands he knew sat in their laps, intertwined just like his were with Keith’s. Lance wished that they didn't have to be sitting up thee. That they didn’t have to accept that what he did was real and testify against someone they had once thought of as their friend. A fairy worthy of respect, now reduced to nothing more than a traitor overnight. 

“Our first two witnesses to come forward are Marina and Delta.” Pidge’s voice was crisp and clear. It was evident that she had practiced a lot for this. “They are water talents, ones who worked closely with Lance throughout his time here in Maple Grove. Is that correct, ladies?”

“Yes, it is.” Marina spoke for the two of them, Delta simply nodded her head along to her words. She was more than out of it, Lance thought. She looked like she wasn’t even there, like she was trying to be everywhere but here.

“Marina.” Pidge turned towards the girl so that she was facing her, looking her straight in her amber eyes. “Is it true that you were the one to encourage Lance to go into the woods that day?”

“I didn’t think that there would be anything wrong with it.” Marina blurted out. The pace at which she spoke was faster than Lance had ever heard come out of her mouth. “I know Lance is an adventurous spirit but nobody else wanted to go there. He was one of the only ones who was willing to. I drew him up a map of where he needed to go but I guess Delta was right all along.”

“Right?” Pidge crossed her arms. “About what?”

“That he wasn’t ready to handle a task so heavy.” Delta replied, monotonous and unenthused. 

“So why did you let him go Marina?”

Lance could see tears threatening to drip out from her eyes. “Because I wanted to prove to everyone that he was growing. That he had grown up from his immaturity and learned the boundaries that us fairies of Maple Grove have set for ourselves. I didn’t think that it would lead to this…”

Marina’s voice trailed off. She looked around Pidge and into Lance’s eyes. “I’m sorry I trusted you. I sent you off to your death sentence and here you are now, brainwashed by him. You deserved a life where no harm ever came to you, Lance. I’m sorry I had to be the one to mess that up.”

Lance wanted to tell her that she hadn’t messed anything up. That, if anything, she had only made his life better. It was true that today could be his last day that he would spend in this world. The last day he had to experience what it meant to be alive, taking in as much of it as he could. The emotions that he felt, the people that he knew, the very act of listening to his heart beat. A part of him longed to go outside. To escape from this warm, stuffy room and feel the sunshine on his skin one last time. To try and memorize the exact shade of blue that they sky above him was and carry it with him wherever he went. To listen in on the world’s secrets one final time, singing along as he picked flowers that he’d want to be buried with Keith. He couldn’t deny as he stopped thinking for a moment to look at the fire fairy’s face that that was what he wanted most of all. For them to be side by side, always. So that death would never do them part. 

He laid his head on Keith’s shoulder, breathing the air out of his lungs until he needed to take in another deep breath. The day felt like it kept getting shorter and shorter when he wished that it would be longer and longer. Lance wouldn’t ever be able to forget how tough yet comforting resting himself on Keith like this felt. He was scrawny, that was true, but that didn’t mean that he didn't have muscle. It somehow melded into his skin, like a bug’s exoskeleton, turning it into something not quite soft but not quite hard. It was firm, strong enough to confirm with Lance that Keith was strong enough to fight. That he would take down any threat that crossed their path with either a swift punch to the face or a fireball that would light them up. Keith wouldn’t ever do it without reason. He wasn’t a monster who felt the need to kill without mercy, laughing as others cried out to him to end it as they burned alive. He loved Maple Grove, more so than the water talent did.

Though he couldn’t help but wonder if his opinion had changed.

“It wasn’t your fault, Marina.” Pidge said reassuringly. “You weren’t the one who told him to fall in love with that monster over there.”

Marina opened her mouth slightly as if she were about to protest but Delta put her arms on her shoulders, whispering something in her ear that nobody else could hear but the two of them.

“Is there anything else that you’d like to ask us?” Delta’s grip didn’t loosen on Marina’s shoulders. “Or are we done here?”

“There is one thing.” Pidge eyed Keith suspiciously. Her lips twisted into a grin, one so devilish that it could only mean that there was one question she was about to ask. One that would confirm everything that Lance had tried to tell Keith about the reality of the inside. “Forgive me for asking but, what is your honest opinion on Lance falling in love with that creature over there?”

Lance cringed at the word ‘creature’. It made him seem like he was something less than they all were, like he didn’t have feelings. Which was ironic, considering animal talents seemed to have more mercy on animals than anyone had for Keith. 

“Lance.” He met Delta’s eyes. They held them for a moment. It was clear that she was analyzing him, seeing if there was any hint of fear of who he was sitting next to. Who he had ‘fallen in love with’. “That fairy over there...has he done anything to harm you?”

Lance glanced down at his arms for a moment, wondering how burns could taint skin with such a disturbing look. They made his skin feel tight, rougher than it used to be. It was starting to regain a slight bit of its softness though it was only noticeable to himself. Keith had technically been the one to inflict these wounds. His magic was the root of them, what had set his skin ablaze. But it wasn’t intentional. Keith wouldn’t have ever dared to try to hurt Lance intentionally, even when they were nothing more than strangers. He used his magic to lead him home without even knowing his name, when he well knew how risky it was. He had trusted him before he had trusted any other fairy that wasn’t Shiro. Lance wasn’t about to lie to them and say that there weren’t scars that marked his body, since they were as plain as the stars in the night sky. But he couldn’t say that they had been his fault, otherwise Delta would never understand where he was coming from. 

“The scars we have, we made together.” Lance replied, plain and simple. “Keith would never willingly hurt me. That’s the last thing he wants to do to anybody. But the blame can’t be put on just one of us. What’s to blame here is love, and how blind it made us.”

Delta nodded, looking back to Pidge. She sighed when she saw how fired up the tinker talent was. “You’re making a mistake.”

Pidge snorted at the suggestion that she might be wrong. “Excuse me?”

“There is no way that he,” Delta pointed at Keith. “Should be labelled as a monster. Lance wouldn’t fall in love with someone that genuinely if he didn’t trust whoever he was with entirely. I can see it in his eyes right now.”

She paused for a moment, then, “You do love Lance, don’t you?”

Keith took a second to process that she’d really asked that. His cheeks flushed as he answered, “Yes, I do.” 

He leaned closer to Lance, placing a kiss on his cheek. A few gasps broke out from the witness stand, though neither of them cared. Delta smiled ever so slightly at the sight of them. “I swear on my life, I do.”

“What do you think now, Marina?” Delta nudged her friend with her shoulder, who rolled her eyes back at her. “Is he brainwashed or what?”

“You never know,” Marina giggled, nudging Delta back. She gave Keith and Lance a thumbs up, along with a supportive grin. “I’m sorry. To both of you. With things the way that they are, you can never be sure who’s lying to you and who isn’t.”

The couple nodded back at her, understanding fully. Neither of them could blame her, considering they both knew well how deceitful the inside could be. Maple Grove was a community founded on lies. Its very leaders took no initiative to research into things further, to try to come up with new solutions instead of sticking to the ways of old. Violence, throwing the innocent in prison, executing them. None of it was a proper answer, yet it was what they relied on. Fear fueled every move that they took, every irrational decision that they made. They believed that was what protected them. Getting rid of those who were deemed ‘too powerful’ or those who were born of a victim’s final scream. How could that be fair? None of them wanted to hurt anybody. None of them were flaunting off their talents to make the others jealous. Jealousy arose out of themselves because they were inferior. Because they would never be able to do as much for their home as those with an extra bit of magic would. The only monsters in this world were the ones who led it.

Though they had convinced their citizens that they were their saviors.

“Take your seats.” Pidge snapped at them. They flitted away without a second’s hesitation, more in fear of her than anyone else in the room. “Next we have Violet and Daisy, two of Allura’s closest friends from work. If you would come to the front, please.”

They obeyed, sitting together behind the witness stand. Lance remembered seeing them around before, back when he used to hang out around the gardens that Allura and them tended to. Daisy was shorter than Violet, with blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Violet shared a similar eye color to Keith, with hair as dark as obsidian. They looked nervous, more than Marina and Delta had been. They fidgeted about in their seats, looking around as if they were trying to find a way to go out. Like they would have an escape in case this didn’t go well, in case Pidge didn’t hear what she wanted to hear. Lance hoped that they would be as honest as Marina and Delta were. From what he knew of them, they seemed like reasonably nice fairies. They looked up to Allura more than any other garden talent who existed, so it would only be natural for them to believe her over Pidge, right?

“It’s true that you’ve been working with Allura since she arrived in Maple Grove, correct?” Pidge began with, diving straight in before the crowd around them had even calmed down.

“Yes.” They both said in unison.

“And in those years of working, has Allura ever done anything strange around you?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Violet was unamused. “No, she hasn’t done anything strange. Nothing stranger than anything I’ve ever seen from a fairy, anyways.”

“Oh, my mistake.” Pidge was pacing in front of the witness stand, back and forth, with small steps that raised Lance’s nerves to a height they had never hit before. “So I’m assuming you’ve never seen her bring flowers back to life?”

“Can she do that?” Daisy spoke with awe. There was no hint of malice in it, only a sparkling in her eyes that Lance found himself smiling at. “Allura, can you do that?”

Allura couldn’t help but laugh herself, “That I can, Daisy.”

Daisy looked into Pidge’s eyes, trying to be as intimidating as she could. Which wasn’t much. No matter how you looked at her, she was cuter than a bunny, even with her face scrunched up. “You’d better not execute her. With how many plants we have to tend to, that power is irreplaceable.”

“It doesn’t bother you that she’s in love with him?” Pidge gestured over to Shiro. “That monster over there that attacked fairies like you and I when he first arrived in Maple Grove?”

“Did they ever give him a chance to explain himself?” Violet asked, raising an eyebrow. Lance had forgotten how snarky she was but he was grateful for it. “Or did they just attack him without hesitation?”

“We have to do what we can to protect our kind.” Pidge growled, almost snarling at Violet’s questions. “Even if that means defending ourselves before they have a chance to hurt us.”

Lance had never asked Keith if there was more to his story of getting pushed out of Maple Grove by them. He knew that, in the realm of fairies born of a victim’s final scream’s arrivals, his seemed to be one of the easiest. Keith hadn’t minded going into the woods, if it meant that he could save his own life. Had anything happened before he was able to reach them? Were there any scars on him that Lance had never seen before, hidden under his clothes to protect him from the truth? A part of Lance didn’t want to know the entire story of Keith’s arrival. If it ended up being horrific, violent, or bloody in any fashion, Lance knew that he would threaten whoever laid a single finger on him in a second. He was already having to hold himself back this entire trial from jumping up and attacking Pidge. Who knows what he would do if he found out that there were more people in this very room who had done harm to him? Lance didn’t want to think about it himself, so he focused his attention back on Daisy and Violet, stroking Keith’s hand with his thumb.

“Allura can love whoever she wants!” Daisy protested, huffing at Pidge’s close mindedness. She got up from her seat, much to Pidge’s dismay, so that she could get a closer look at her friend’s beloved. “So this is who you ended up with, huh? What’s your name?”

“Shiro.” He held out his hand for her to shake. Why did he like to use the one that had been healed over his other one?

She hesitated but grabbed onto it anyways, surprised when it functioned just the same as anyone else’s. “I hope you don’t mind me asking but, what happened to your arm?”

Shiro bit his lip. For a moment, it seemed he was going to expose the Black Hoods for who they truly were in front of everyone, but decided against it when he noticed Pidge and how she was glaring daggers at him. “I was attacked when I tried to come and see you all. I was hoping to negotiate with one of your leaders and make a deal, so that my friend over there could live in the land he so admired but that clearly didn’t happen.”

“Who did it to you?” Violet landed beside Daisy, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“I can’t remember.” Shiro lied, knowing well who did it. “All I know is that Allura came to save me. Healed me right back up. My arm works as well as it did before.”

Pidge was growing impatient, with every sidetracked conversation that each witness had with the accused. This wasn’t how things were supposed to turn out. They were supposed to guilt Shiro and Keith into revealing information about what they’d done, not make her out to be the villain in this situation. She couldn’t be further from the villain. They deserved to be executed, for going behind their society’s back. For not even having the guts to fess up to killing a fairy that they knew nothing about. That they hadn’t shared countless moments in their workshop with, inventing contraptions that would advance Maple Grove further than it had ever been before. That they hadn’t felt as safe with, on days when everything seemed to be falling apart in their hands right before their eyes. That they hadn’t looked up to, one day wishing to fulfill the dreams that had been laid out for them, all because of him.

“In your seats!” She shouted. Her shoulders were tense, cheeks puffed out from the breath she was holding in her mouth. “We’re done with the witness accounts. Now it’s time to question the accused.”

Lance swallowed. No matter which way he tried to think about it, what questions he thought of in his head that she could ask, he couldn’t find a single argument that would support their side. Just because they had Violet and Daisy and Marina and Delta backing them up didn’t mean that they would make it out of this trial without being stamped with the big, red letters of ‘guilty’. Coran had the judge’s mallet. He was the one who was going to make the call. A rebellion to the Black Hoods was little more than an inconvenience, something that could be smoothed over with threats and a controlling hand. Whatever the citizens of Maple Grove thought was nothing more than a weed growing in a patch of flowers to him. Neither Coran nor Pidge realized, however, that weeds would come back. No matter how many times that you pulled them, new ones would grow somewhere else. The battle they were fighting was practically impossible.

But the one that Lance was fighting was as hopeless as finding a needle in a haystack.

“Lance.” The way that she said his name sent shivers down his spine. Keith moved one of his arms so that it wrapped around Lance’s waist as he sat straight up in his seat. “You snuck around to see Keith, correct?”

“Sneaking around isn’t how I would put it…” Lance bit his lip, trying to think of a way to properly phrase it. “More like bending the truth to get to where I needed to go.”

“So you lied, then?”

“Why does it matter to you if I did?” Lance asked. “It’s not like it hurt anybody.”

Pidge made a pained expression at that remark but moved on with much haste. “This is a question for Shiro.” The tinker talent took a breath to regain her composure. It was getting harder for her to not snap at them, Lance noticed. “When you came to the inside, you left Keith by himself, correct?”

“I did.” Shiro locked his jaw. Something wasn’t right about the way he was acting. He was closed off, isolated. Unaware while being completely conscious of everything that was around him. “He was alone for about two months, I believe. Adding on the time that’s passed since he came back to me, it would make it three months ago or so since then.”

“You didn’t leave sooner?” Pidge looked like she was about to bite her tongue off. 

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“How long ago did you find Shiro, Allura?” Pidge turned sharply to face her. “Was it about the same time?”

“From what I’m hearing, yes.” Allura replied simply. “He’s been with me for about two months, if I can recall correctly.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Pidge slammed her hand against their table, the sound echoing throughout the room that had succumbed to silence. “I know that you are, so you might as well let your acts up now!”

“Pidge…” Allura’s voice trailed off, looking over to Lance, as if he knew how to help. The water talent shrugged, leaning back into Keith for support. He’d spent all of his arguing on her already. “We’re not. We don’t have anything else that we can tell you.”

“You have to!” There were tears in the tinker talent’s eyes now. Her wings were folded behind her back, drooping worse than Lance’s had when he’d spent too long out in the rain. “There isn’t anybody else who could know anything but you!”

“I’m sorry.” Allura said, looking down at her hands that were laid in front of her on the table. “I don’t know what else you want us to say.”

Pidge sunk down to her knees. She was defeated, once and for all. The four who sat behind the table of the accused shared a glance with each other, all of them unknowing to what was happening. They had never seen a fairy so broken, so obviously fighting inner battles that were taking a toll on them as if they were a physical war. One of them had a hint of something else to the way they looked at this fairy. It caused his eyebrows to furrow and his head to tilt. Quizzatical, Lance thought. That was what it was. As if he were questioning everything that had lead up to this moment, a final state of exhaustion for Pidge, despite not knowing her. There was more wisdom in the way his dark eyes looked at her than the two who had known her for years carried. It came to him like a flash of lightning, as an idea seemed to go off in his head.

“I know what she wants.” Shiro stood up from his seat and knelt down next to Pidge, holding out a hand for her to take. She hesitated for a moment, off put by the strange white lines that ran down his arm, but the way he smiled at her reminded her of Matt. So she let him help her off of the floor, brushing herself off. “Your brother… He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Pidge wiped the tears from the edges of her eyes with her sleeves, “How would you know that if you didn’t kill him?”

“Because I saw who did it to him.” Shiro’s sigh sounded pained, as if this memory were something that had been weighing down on him for a while. “There are more fairies than just me and Keith at the edge of Maple Grove, you know.”

Her jaw dropped open, “There are?”

Shiro nodded. It wasn’t long before Lance felt Keith’s hand slip from out of his own, the fairy flying over to his guardian’s side. The water talent followed behind his fiance, nearly shaking from the scene the was unfolding in front of him. Everything that they were saying reduced Lance’s stomach to contain nothing more than a swarm of butterflies, beating their wings harshly against his insides. Keith noticed him swaying so he grabbed onto him, for he needed Lance’s support more than anything right then. This was a scenario that none of them could have predicted, no matter how much information they had been able to uncover about the reality of the world that they were living in. Another fairy of their kind, or multiple, had harmed someone close to Pidge. This fairy was who had caused her mood to change so rapidly, turning against her friends at the drop of a hat.

“Was that why you left?” Keith asked. His voice was quiet and meek, though the weight of his words rang out louder than any others of the day. “To keep me safe?”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew that you’d worry.” Shiro looked at Pidge, his eyes more serious than ever. “What was your brother’s name?”

“Matt.” Pidge couldn’t quite meet his eyes. She couldn’t quite meet anyone’s anything, with the state that she was in. “His name was Matt.”

“I never knew you had a brother.” Lance could feel his heart sink even further. 

“He died before you could meet him.” Pidge admitted. She was dragging her feet across the floor. “That’s why I never told you.”

Coran flew down to them, “So is it true?”

“Is what true?” Keith asked, since nobody else seemed willing to.

“Are you on our side?” 

“We are.” Keith said. “One hundred percent.” He looked at Pidge, smiling the best smile that he could. “Will we be able to clear our names if we hunt down this fairy for you?”

Lance could feel every part of his body tense up with excitement. This could be their chance to not have to say goodbye. To be able to live out their happily ever after on the inside, married and in love, as they dreamed to be. Nature would reveal every song it knew to them, every detail that they could ever want to know about the ground that they stood on. There would be no more worry of war or threat of darkness on the horizon. They would no longer have to fight over whether fairies born of a victim’s final scream were evil or not. Everyone would be able to see what they’d been neglecting to from the start. In every group of everything, there was bound to be a few bad seeds here and there. None of it made the entirety of them bad, nor did it reveal anything about the group itself. Everyone was an individual, whether they liked to believe it or not. They thought different things, they liked different things, they fell in love with different things. It was impossible to judge a majority based on a minority. So the fact that they were coming around meant that maybe there was a light at the end of the tunnel after all.

“Absolutely.” Coran said. Pidge nodded vigorously. “Just tell me one thing before you prepare to track him down.”

“Anything.” Shiro stood a little taller. Allura found her way to his side, putting herself in between his arm and his side.

“What is this fairy’s name?”

Shiro looked around the room for a second, like this fairy would pop in and attack them at any moment. He leaned in closer to Coran, close enough so that only the six of them who stood at the front could hear him. Lance didn’t think to question it at the time but what they were up against was no ordinary fairy. He was powerful, more so than Keith and Shiro combined. He wouldn’t give a damn about what they wanted to do, whether it be to protect Maple Grove or themselves. All he wanted was blood. He was vicious, notorious for killings, though it had all gone under the radar. Since Shiro had been the only one to see it, to watch the flames burning over bodies of fairies he’d never seen before, nearly passing out from the horror of it all. That was why when he next spoke, it was fainter than a whisper, gentler than a blanket. A sugar coating on one of the most sour candies of all time.

“Lotor.” Shiro said, his voice falling quieter when he spoke again.

“His name is Lotor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> I apologize for such a long gap between updates! I was struggling a lot with writing this chapter and this isn't even the first attempt at writing it. I scrapped that idea completely, at a little over four thousand words, and wrote this instead. I promise updates will be closer in the future, now that this is over and done with. This fic is coming to a close, you only have to hang in there a little longer and it will be over.
> 
> Which I don't want but, all good things must come to an end, huh? <3


	14. Chapter 14

Chaos was too light of a word to describe what the courtroom broke out into after the announcement that there was more evidence needed to prove the four accused guilty.

Lance couldn’t count the number of voices he heard. All of them were competing for dominance, shouting over one another, striving for their words to be heard above the rest. Occasionally one of them would break through, catching the water talent’s attention. How long had it been since he’d heard such harsh words spewing in his direction from their mouths? He would’ve retaliated back when he used to live on the inside. Even if it was something as childish as sticking his tongue out at them. But this fight wasn’t one that would be worth it. Not right now. Not when there was another war brewing on the horizon, inching closer and closer in on them as if the very walls of their reality were closing in on them. The closer they got, the less life Lance felt that he had to live. 

Keith nudged Lance’s side when he noticed his blank expression, causing the water talent to jump like he’d seen a ghost. Keith shook his head, laughing with such a heartiness that Lance couldn’t help but allow his chest to burst to life with the warmth that Keith brought into his life. Coran was trying to quiet the crowd. Much to his dismay, it seemed to make things significantly worse. Instead of putting their ideas up in the air, they had someone who was trying to respond to them. Someone who was giving them the answers that they wanted to hear, just so they could counteract them. Lance felt fortunate that he wasn’t like them. That whatever hatred they seemed to be prone to had skipped his tuft of dandelion fluff. That couldn’t stop him from listening on on their remarks, biting his tongue so that he didn’t say something he knew he would regret.

“But they’re fairies born of darkness!” An animal talent cried. Lance had seen him around a few times before, though he had never bothered to catch his name, for he was one of the fairies who whispered despicable things about Lance behind his back. “What evidence could you possibly need to confirm that?”

“There’s no doubt about how these two were born.” Coran gestured towards Keith and Shiro, who were eyeing the crowd with concern. To them, it came off as sinister glares. Fairies shifted back in their seats at the sight of them, looking at their friends with frightened faces. “But they haven’t done anything to directly harm us.”

“Their powers are dangerous!” Another one shouted. This one had passion behind it, so intense that it made Lance shift himself towards Keith front side. Just in case they tried to do something drastic. “Look at the burns that are on his skin!”

This remark was no doubt directed towards Lance and the burns that were parading themselves around like bait dangling over the head of a fish. They had been dying to snatch that argument up since the moment they’d realized it, no doubt. Keith’s eyes filled with guilt. He looked away from Lance a few seconds too late. He had seen them, noticed the tears that were about to fall away from him, without a doubt. It was Lance’s turn to shake his head now. For what it was worth, Keith was smart. Really smart. He had caught onto their fairy language faster than anyone Lance had ever seen before. Granted, fairies born of babies laughter were inclined to understand it from birth so there were few who needed to be taught much. That aside, there was no doubt in Lance’s mind that Keith was meant to fight. He had the brains, he had the power for it. The only thing that he didn’t have was the emotional strength.

Truth be told, Lance didn’t know if he had it either.

He’d thought about it before. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he would rather take the blunt of a blow that could kill Keith and die himself than live without him. That was what it always boiled down to in the water talent’s mind. In no world would he exist without Keith. Either Lance went down himself or they both went down together, but not without a fight to keep their lives. They had won this one. Even if they were hanging onto their lives by the tips of their fingers, grasping onto a thread so thin, it was almost invisible. But what if Lance lost Keith when they were fighting Lotor? What if he couldn’t block his attacks in time? Together, they were stronger. They knew that they had the ability to do anything that they could’ve ever dreamed to do, if they put their minds to it. Alone, they were nothing more than what they’d always been. Cowards hiding in the protection of nature, singing lullabies to numb their minds.

Nobody in this room but the two of them could understand the suffering that came about with being apart.

“He’s not the only one with a scar!” Keith yelled back, with such power that it practically made Lance fall to the floor. “There’s one on my chest. I know that you can’t see it but I swear it’s there. Just ask Allura.”

The garden talent’s mouth was slightly ajar. From shock or amazement, Lance couldn’t tell. It shifted quickly into a half smile as she turned to face the crowd, squeezing tightly onto Shiro’s hand. “He’s right! I’m the one who inflicted it, to save him. All of you refuse to leave well enough alone until violence comes into play.”

“But that’s the only way to keep Maple Grove peaceful!” A new voice this time. Lance couldn’t tell whose it was. Someone lost in the crowd, no doubt. “If we don’t give ourselves the upper hand, who knows what they could do to us.

Allura shook her head disappointedly, making eye contact with this mysterious fairy. “Is it peace that you truly want? Or is it blood?” 

“Peace doesn’t come without bloodshed.” They retorted. Lance could practically hear them crossing their arms across their chest, wherever they were. “You should know that better than anyone.”

“Alright, alright!” Coran yelled before Allura could say anything else. Shiro looked over at him thankfully, guiding her back to her seat. She rested her head on the table once she was back there, letting him rub her back. “Stop acting like you’re all the judges here! That’s my job! And what I’ve judged from this situation is that we could use these fairies as a powerful ally, against a force that you can’t comprehend the power of!”

“They’re just as powerful!” A woman’s voice. Lance rolled his eyes. They were digging themselves further into their own graves at this point. “If they turn against us, it would be more devastating than if we killed them now and figured out a way to hunt down Lotor ourselves! They’ve already recruited allies of their own!”

“Which means that we can trust them.” Coran looked like he was about to blow a fuse. “Allura and Lance would be dead by now if their intentions were malicious! That’s why we’re sending them out to fight Lotor. If they can kill one of their own kind, then they’ll do it as many times as it takes to protect you. Isn’t that what you want?”

Silence fell across the room. Some fairies looked anxiously around at their friends, while others bit their tongues to hold their curses back. Lance stepped closer to Coran, standing on his left. Keith took the empty space on his right. The two of them smiled at each other from behind Coran, moving their heads so that they both found themselves smiling at him. Allies. That was what the official term for Keith and Shiro would be. No longer would they be known as monsters, or disgraces, or any other sort of title that held a negative connotation. At least, not to the Black Hoods. It was more progress than Lance had expected, more than any of the four of them had expected. They wouldn’t take it for granted, nor would they try to question it. All that they could feel was something that none of them had felt in a long time. Hope, fluttering about in their chests like the birds that arose at dawn. Today marked the day that they were one step closer to freedom. One leap, Lance thought.

“Thank you.” He whispered to Coran under his breath. “We won’t let you down.”

“Are you certain I’m not making a mistake?” Coran directed this at Keith, who took a moment to realize it. Lance giggled. He covered his mouth when he realized how ridiculous it sounded, careful to press his fingers over his reddening cheeks.

Keith rolled his eyes before he responded. “I can promise you that you aren’t. And the only promises I’ve made in my life, I’ve never broken.”

Coran patted the two of them on their shoulders, then took it upon himself to send everyone away. Keith and Lance went back to the table while he did. Partially to check on how Allura and Shiro were doing, but mostly so that they were far enough away from the crowd that Coran would be able to stop them, if they decided to try and do anything to hurt them. More fairies smiled at them than Lance had been expecting. There had probably always been allies that they could lean on flying right under their noses. Marina and Delta even went so far as wave goodbye, not just to him, but to Keith as well. It was the first time that Keith had ever had anyone wave at him. Lance raised his arm and helped him wave it, the two of them giggling their way out of the courtroom. 

“Who were those girls?” Keith asked Lance after they’d walked out. “Friends of yours?”

“You could say that, I guess.” Lance’s eyes lingered for a few moments at the door. He realized that they hadn’t been crying because of what he’d done. They’d been crying because they thought today would be the last time that they’d ever see him alive. “We worked together for a while. But it looks like they cared about me more than I thought they did.”

Keith nodded. There was a questioning to it that he couldn’t place, like he suspected that there was something more than friendship between them. Lance took Keith’s hand in his own just to be on the safe side. While they’d been through so much together, spending nearly every waking minute with each other for nearly two months, it didn’t seem to be enough to ease Keith’s worry. There was always someone better than him out there for Lance to date in his eyes. But there wouldn’t be enough days in their lives, enough opportunities in their relationship for him to fix what had broken in Keith. There was a part of him that wondered if it was ever there to begin with, the ability to trust. Or if that promise he’d made to Shiro he’d suspected would be broken the moment it passed his lips.

“I think we should be through the worst of the crowd.” Lance told Allura. She looked up, at the straggling fairies who were lazing along. “That was a lot more intense of a trial than I thought it’d be.”

“If you thought that was intense,” Pidge pulled a chair up from the seats behind them, positioning herself in the middle of table across from them. “Then try taking on Lotor tonight.”

“Tonight?” Shiro practically choked on air as he asked it. “I don’t mean to be the bad guy here Pidge but we don’t have any weapons. Or a plan, for that matter.”

“I’ve got all of that covered.” Pidge replied, waving his concerns off with her hand. “I’ve been inventing weapons specifically for this day. As for a plan, we can sort that out once I show you everything that I have to offer.”

Shiro seemed satisfied with this answer but that didn’t ease any of the others’ concerns. Lance for one wasn’t about to sit back and follow a plan that seemed to be nothing but one fairy’s desire for revenge. Keith was alive for now but that could change in the blink of an eye. And Lance, for one, wasn’t about to risk his eyes being close when it happened. 

“What if we get hurt?” Lance raised his free hand to exaggerate this point, only to give himself a papercut in the process. He cursed under his breath, about to stick the injured finger in his mouth to stop its bleeding. “The infirmary can’t all be on our side, can they?”

“Just keep me alive” Allura took his hand in her own and pressed a finger to the cut, ceasing its existence. “And you’ll never die.”

Lance couldn’t believe all of the nonsense he was hearing. They had all been so rational earlier. What had happened to their logic? “Are you all insane? We just saved Shiro and Keith, barely. And now we’re going on a suicide mission? Without any proper training?”

“We’re fighting a war, Lance.” Keith pressed himself closer into the water talent’s side, so that Lance would lay his head on his shoulder. He had been squeezing so tight onto Keith’s hand that when he let go, there were red marks from the force he’d been using on it. “The trial was just one battle. Tonight might be sudden but don’t you want to get this over with? Don’t you want to finally start our future?”

Lance’s mind found some peace, pressed against Keith. Somehow he was always able to clear his mind, even in the times that he said nothing. The blue eyed fairy closed his eyes. It was easy to imagine everything that he wanted to do with Keith in the future. That was all that Lance had thought that he had for so long that the possibilities his mind had come up with were endless. A wedding down by the creek where they first met, complete with the smiling faces of their whole group of friends. Pidge and Allura on one side, Hunk and Shiro on the other. Building a house of their own up in a tree. One that was up high enough that nobody would bother them unless they cared to. But what Lance couldn’t deny looking forward to the most was waking up and seeing Keith’s sleeping face in front of his own, so that he could kiss him and know that they had made it.

That they had won the war.

“I understand you wanting to wait.” Pidge interrupted his thoughts. “But I’m sick of it. I’ve waited too long to erase him from this world. This could all end tonight. None of us will have anything else to worry about in our lives again.”

“Says the one who was always on the good side.” Lance mumbled. He snapped his head up quickly after he realized how insensitive that was. Pidge genuinely looked hurt, though she tried to cover it up. It made Lance feel worse. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t know how winning this is going to make them change their minds about us. Won’t we still have to worry about them killing us?”

“You’ll have the Black Hoods on your side.” Pidge said, tossing Lance something that resembled a controller. All that was on it was a switch and it took him no time at all to know that this is what had brought them to their cells, where they thought the future waiting for them was nothing more than an endless void. He put it down on the table, disgusted by it. “We had to do what we had to so that we would be able to confirm that Keith and Shiro weren’t threats to Maple Grove. You understand that, don’t you?”

Lance didn’t.

He didn’t understand anything that Pidge had done to protect their precious homeland or whatever they were calling it. If she had just believed them, then there would’ve been no pain. There wouldn’t have been a reason for Shiro to have been hiding with Allura or for Lance to have run away to be with Keith. Though then, Pidge would’ve never opened up to them. She would’ve hidden this secret from them as she tended to do until it ate her entire soul away. From the looks of it, it had already eaten something away. The ability to keep her emotions from swaying this way and that. Lance wanted to ask her how much of the world reminded her of Matt. That if when she looked around, she saw everything that she’d never get to see instead of appreciating the world for herself. Lance had to sympathize with her doing all of this for him.

Since he knew, deep down, that he’d do the same for Keith.

“I can’t understand you doing all of this for him to such an extreme extent,” Lance began, noticing how Pidge started to lighten up with hope at how his tone had changed. “But I know all about the crazy things fairies will do for the ones they love the most. So count me in.”

Pidge looked like she was about to lean across the table and hug him when he went, “On one condition.”

“Anything.” Pidge responded, full of a vengeful excitement. “Name your price.”

Lance slid the controller across the table. “Destroy this.”

“We can trust them, Lance.” Allura spoke this time, words backed by her usual strictness. “They took care of Pidge like this. They wanted to help her, not hurt us. That was just a bonus for them if it turned out we needed to go.”

“I don’t care if we can trust them.” Pidge was holding it in her hands. Lance knew she had put a lot of effort into it but that wasn’t what mattered. “This is our fight, not anyone else’s. This is our chance to prove ourselves. I don’t want them having our backs when we should learn how to stand on our own.”

“But-”

“Consider it done.” Pidge cut Allura off, shoving the controller into her pocket. “I have to say, though. Of everyone here, I didn’t expect you to be the one to say that.”

Even Lance couldn’t argue with that. He knew that he wouldn’t have before he met Keith. He would’ve wanted as much help as he could’ve gotten in a situation like this. War wasn’t something that warranted brushing off help. It welcomed allies, strengthened bonds between them like they had never been before. That was why he wanted to keep it just to the five of them. They were the ones that were meant to come together to destroy the fairy who threatened to destroy their home. Who showed no mercy in the face of the innocent. Lance looked at them, at how they’d changed. They were weary and worn, with evidence of that gracing places that it’d never been before, but they were still standing. Every single one of them was broken, waiting to be fixed. With their luck, tonight would be the night that would do it. They would be able to overcome their differences, their secrets, their troubles. They would have to free themselves with their own hands, on their own terms.

Nobody could help them with that.

“That’s Lance for you.” Keith smiled. It was filled with the most pride of anyone in the room. Like this Lance was the one that he remembered, the one who had shown him what it was like to be strong. “Always full of surprises.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Lance stood up. 

He waited until everyone else stood around the table with him. Keith was the first to get up, standing beside him like a soldier stepping into line during a march. Shiro was the second, with Allura right on his heels. The two of them had less strength to offer, but what they did have was love. Almost like they were their parents, watching their children finally reach their full potential. Pidge was the last to rise to her feet, hovering a bit off of the ground to make herself seem taller. Lance looked at her, watching as she nodded back at him. He nodded back, turning around to face the door. Lance made a wish in that moment, one that he was worried about coming true. But, with them by his side, it seemed possible. So he let out a breath and shouted it as enthusiastically as he could. 

“Let’s win a war!”

\--------------------------

How Pidge lived in her workshop was a mystery to everyone.

She had told them to all watch their steps when she opened the door but none of them expected it to be as cluttered as it was. There tools everywhere, sitting on tables and chairs. Though they were outshined by all of the scraps of metal that laid around. Ones that were speckled with rust and smudges of something that was a few shades darker. Lance didn’t want to think about what it could be but, with the way their pointy edges glinted in the light, it was hard to try and think of anything other than blood. The nails in the floorboards looked like they’d been taken up and hammered down more times than was necessary. He found a table in the back corner to lean against, only for a stack of papers to come fluttering down against the floor. Keith rushed over to help him pick them up as the others marveled at everything else surrounding them that wasn’t a part of the mess.

On the walls hung blueprints for inventions that seemed like they could revolutionize the very way that their workdays ran. Allura ran her fingers along the edges of one that looked like it had the ability to sense and suck up weeds into it while not harming the other still growing flowers. From the looks if it, Pidge had hung it up there ages ago. A layer of dust covered it, which she wiped off on her lilac pants. Shiro stood in front of another blueprint a few feet away from Allura. It was a machine with a funnel at one end and a bunch of containers at the other, that could sort gems by a variety of presets that could be programmed into it. The two of them started whispering to each other as Pidge shut her front door behind them, tilting her head when they jumped at her noticing them. Despite their fears, she shrugged it off, walking to the center of the room so she could lean her back on a worktable that sat like a prize in the center of a temple, the crown jewel of her workshop. Everything underneath was hidden by a gray tarp, leaving it to look like nothing more than a bunch of lumps under a cloth.

“These blueprints are amazing!” Allura flew over to the tinker talent, pointing to the one she had just been looking at. “Have you gotten around to inventing them yet?”

“I wish that I could but I don’t have enough materials.”

“Yeah, right.” Lance snorted, motioning to the seemingly endless pile of materials lying by their feet. “This isn’t enough for you?”

“Not if I don’t want all of my creations to fall apart after their first use, it isn’t.” Pidge rolled her eyes, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“Why have the blueprints up then?” Keith asked this time. “If I were you, I’d put them in a drawer somewhere safe. You don’t know who could come in and steal them.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow at this in challenge. It was like she’d wanted him to ask her that exact question. She reached underneath the tarp and pulled out a hammer, pushing a bunch of scraps out of the way underneath of the workbench so that she had clear access to the floor. As she removed the nails from it, pulling up the boards one by one, a box came into view. It was made out of a dull, silvery metal. Whoever had made it had welded it crudely together, as the edges didn’t quite look even. They were bumpy, reminding Lance of lava that had cooled as it made its way down the side of a volcano. It was older than anything else in the room. With all of the dents and rust on it, it was amazing to both him and Keith when she pulled it out and the hinges opened the lid like it had been created only yesterday.

“Copies.” She grinned up smugly at Keith as she pulled out a stack of blueprints. They’d been touched so little that they practically looked brand new. “I draw doubles of everything and hide their copies under the floorboards so nobody can find them.”

Keith gave her a nod of approval. “Smart.”

“This is only the tip of the iceberg.” She started heaving the papers back into the box, then the box back into its hole in the floor. “I have boxes stashed around everywhere. This one’s only for my favorite ideas.”

“Wouldn’t you keep your favorites in a prettier box?” Lance asked, motioning to a newly constructed tool box on the counter. “You can always make yourself another one.”

“I’ve been using this one since I first learned how to weld.” She looked down at it sadly for a few moments before she started pulling boards back over it to hammer, moving her thumb over something engraved into the top that Lance couldn’t quite make out. “It’s where I’ve always put them.”

Lance looked over at Keith as she hammered it back up, feeling a pang of guilt in his chest. From the way her hands had pulled it out so gingerly, to the longing in her eyes like it was a part of the past she couldn’t bring back, it was obvious to him who’d helped her make it. Keith pushed some of Lance’s hair behind his ear, so that he could lean down and whisper into it.

“It’s okay.” Lance could hear him trying to smile as he said it, in the way that he had always smiled to reassure him. “She’s not mad at you. She just misses him more than she lets on.”

“How can you tell?” Lance looked up at him expectantly, like Keith held all the answers to every question in the world.

It only took one glance from Keith across the room at Shiro for all of the gears in Lance’s mind to click.

Keith was the only one out of all of them who could understand more than they could what Pidge was going through. Lance had seen how heartbroken he had been firsthand, how lost he’d been without Shiro to guide him. Pidge had shut herself away because that feeling had harbored itself in her in a way that it hadn’t in Keith. While he had been able to act in, she could only act out. She hadn’t shut herself away in her workshop constantly simply because she couldn’t. She had friends who worried about her, people who dragged her away from the outlet that she needed more than anything. Pidge had hidden it from them so that she wouldn’t have to drag them into the mess that she was trying to figure out on her own. They had dragged themselves into it the moment that they each met their respective outsider partner.

“We can’t bring him back from the dead but I know there’s something in her that’s still alive.” Keith put his arm around Lance’s shoulder and the water talent did the same to him. “Once Lotor’s dead, I know you’ll see her again. The real Pidge.”

“What did you say about me?” The tinker talent sprang up to face them.

“Nothing.” Lance put a hand up to Keith’s mouth so that he wouldn’t say anymore. “Nothing at all.”

She didn’t even question it. “I think it’s high time I show you all what I have for you to fight with, wouldn’t you agree?”

Shiro and Allura flew closer, eager to see what they would have to defend themselves with tonight. Lance stood his ground in the back, leaning in closer to Keith. It wasn’t close enough so that they were touching. It was just close enough that, if Lance fell back from the shock of seeing all of Pidge’s weapons, things that were meant to kill with a single blow, Keith would be able to catch him. A safety measure in the form of a different kind of defense. The water talent turned to see the fire talent smiling back at him, wondering just how many stupid mistakes would’ve led him out to his woods on his own if his map hadn’t been ripped from his hands and sent flying away in the wind. He hoped that in every reality there was that they somehow met, that every timeline was the two of them together.

But Lance knew that it wasn’t possible, so he thanked the sky and the rivers that they’d given him Keith.

“So here,” Pidge pulled away the tarp, revealing gadgets that dropped nearly every jaw in the room. “Is where the magic happens.”

Clearly Pidge had advanced her skills further than making a single pair of sneakers. 

Lance stepped forward hesitantly. 

Scattered across the table were weapons of power that he’d never seen before. At most, fairies would defend themselves with a simple bow and arrow, crafted of nothing more than a stick and some string. Nothing that sat on this table was as simple as that. Lance picked up a slingshot that Pidge had created. She handed a sachet to him as she explained why glass made the perfect material to shoot at Lotor. While it could be melted at extremely high temperatures, Pidge had cut the edges so that they were sharp enough to pierce deep into Lotor’s flesh, giving him wounds that wouldn’t be easy to come back from, even if he managed to melt a majority of the glass away. She said that it would be the most fitting weapon for Lance, the one that would do the most damage while he would be able to relish the suffering on his face.

Pidge had already passed Allura a whip. The garden talent held it gingerly in her hand, like it would do more damage to herself than to anyone she used it on. Granted, Lance thought, that’s probably how she felt. While Lotor was no doubt the villain in their story, Allura couldn’t say that she hadn’t been one at one point. Stealing fairies from their homes at night, having to watch on with a blank stare as they were executed. Sometimes she would mouth an ‘I’m sorry’ in their direction, if she had been particularly close to them. Allura had been a part of the side of the Black Hoods that Pidge hadn’t considered. The part that wanted to erase every piece of conflict from Maple Grove, no matter the cost. She hoped that the tinker talent hadn’t been involved with it, that she had been spared from seeing all of the horrors that went on in their world.

So Allura thanked her for this gift, knowing that it would be no use to push it away when Pidge needed her help so desperately. 

“Each of the weapons you hold in your hands now, I created with the two of your strengths in mind.” Pidge said, addressing Allura and Lance as she did. “Shiro, Keith. I don’t know what you’re capable of, but there are plenty of others that you can choose from, if you don’t feel comfortable using your magic.”

Keith surveyed the table in front of him, his fingers finding their way to the handle of a sword. He pulled it up and held it out in front of him, grinning at Lance while he did. He could only respond with a whispered, ‘whoa’, which only made the edges of Keith’s lips rise up higher. “I’d like to use this, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s all yours.” Pidge responded. Lance could see then the respect she truly harbored for Keith now as she nodded her head, him realizing then how amazing it must’ve been for her to see Keith give up using his powers for a fight as crucial and potentially deadly as this.

What Lance saw, however, was something much stronger. Something that none of the others in this room could realize but him. Keith was putting himself aside so that he could fight like the fairies before him had fought. He was trying to prove to the world that he could be a normal fairy, not just the monster that every had made him out to be. If it were his powers that defined him as trouble, he would cast them aside, just to prove to the one who had despised him the most that he was just like her. Lance was too in shock to do anything but turn back to Pidge and nod approvingly, letting one side of his mouth raise up so that it could be seen by Keith. She handed the dark haired boy a sheath to put it in, which he strapped around his waist in an instant. There was still some space that he couldn’t fill, Lance noticing how it rode down on him a bit, but it would suffice. Better that than nothing.

Pidge looked over at Shiro expectantly, but he merely shook his head. “I’ve been around longer than Keith. I know how to keep my powers controlled under pressure, so you won’t have to worry about a thing.” Lance was about to protest, to call him out on his harsh words when Shiro raised his hands up in defense. “Not that you won’t get there, someday. It just takes time and patience.”

“Hopefully I’ll get there someday.” Keith replied, wrapping his arm around one of Lance’s shoulders. “Even if I don’t, at least you’re still here.”

“Yeah.” Lance smiled as he kissed the top of his head, though he couldn’t deny the last minute anxiety that was taking ahold of him. 

Pidge had equipped herself with a bow and arrow, one that looked like it was made out of something stronger than wood but just as malleable. She’d swung a holder filled with arrows over her shoulder, calling out to the rest of them to make their way to the door. Shiro and Allura flew behind her without hesitation, but it took Lance a moment to be able to get enough confidence to go and join them. The only thing that was keeping him from running to his house right then, back to a place where he’d have more of a chance of survival than out on the battlefield, was Keith nudging him towards the door. Not physically, more so with the energy that Lance could feel radiating off of him. He was ready. He had been ready for this moment ever since he was brought into this world. Lance had promised himself that he would die for Keith, if it came to that. So, with his hand in his, he flew with him to the door, noticing how slightly it shook in his own.

“Alright, soldiers.” Pidge raised her bow up into the air, marching down her front steps, exuding the confidence and charisma of a commander. 

“It’s time for our final battle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with school finally over, i've been able to focus a lot more. chapters are getting less and less frequent because i haven't been able to prepare myself to say goodbye. chapter fifteen will be the finale, the fight you've all been waiting for.  
> i hope you're ready for some angst because there's gonna be a lot of it next time.


	15. Chapter 15

The edge of the forest where Lotor laid was swarming with all of nature’s signs to run away while they still had the chance.

Keith had been slicing vines out of their way for the majority of their trek, warning the others to be careful as they flew. None of their feet dared to touch the ground, though they were careful to not fly too high. It was a delicate balance they had to maintain when going after Lotor. Occasionally, a fox or something of the sort would cross their paths, baring its fangs at them in a way that no such creature ever dared to do who lived amongst fairies. Something about how high and dead the trees were, combined with the animals and vines, made this forest practically synonymous with hell. A fitting place for a fairy so deviant to take shelter in. Lance would sometimes start to let his curiosity get the best of him. Whenever his feet strayed off the path, Keith would pull him right back by his side, holding onto him for a bit before letting him go again.

Pidge had been mumbling curses about Lotor under her breath the entire time, saying that it was ridiculous that he had to hide in such a secluded place. That if he were a real villain, he wouldn’t be this unwilling to fight. It hadn’t struck Lance before, but it didn’t take him long to start speculating as to why he would be like that. Why he wouldn’t have already incinerated the entirety of Maple Grove with his flames if he hated them so much. There had been something so off about him that it had driven Shiro out of the woods, to find a more suitable home for him and Keith. That was the moment when everything clicked into place in Lance’s head, the gears in his perception of the story whirring faster than they had before. There was only one way to figure out the rest of this story.

And he was standing right near him, tuft of white hair and all.

“Shiro, how did you know Lotor’s name?” Lance asked out of the blue, as quietly as he could. “Do you even know when he was born?”

Pidge stopped dead in her tracks. Clearly she hadn’t given much thought to Shiro’s unexpected proclamation at the trial. Keith stopped slicing the vines ahead of them, putting his sword away in the meantime. Allura looked up at him curiously, holding onto his arm as tighter than she had been this entire hike. All of them had been so caught up in their preparations, they’d been blinded by the fact that there was only one of them who truly knew what they were up against. Pidge could fill in some of the pieces, given where her brother had gone the day that he was killed and the sorts of wounds that had caused him to perish, but Shiro would be able to tell them the truth. They’d had an encounter of sorts that none of the others present had had. A moment of interaction so close with him that Lotor had given Shiro his name.

Shiro looked at Lance for a moment. This was the first time that the water talent had seen even a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. It made him look vulnerable, like a lost creature trying to find its way back home to its mother. “There are some stories that are better left untold.”

“But you said that the whole entire reason you left the forest was because you felt that it was unsafe.” Pidge replied, her arms now crossed in front of her chest. “What did he tell you that sent you fleeing in such a hurry?’

The five of them floated in silence for a moment. That was when Keith and Lance’s eyes met, hearing that song that had filled their ears on nights like this back when it was just the two of them. There was something strange about it this time, though. While their song was never short of sounding melancholy, balanced out only by the lightness of its tune, this time there was a sourness to it. A note here or there that wasn’t quite right. A skipped beat that threw the entire rhythm off. Something was starting to fade away from it, a part of a summer’s lullaby that neither of them had noticed before. A part of the song so crucial that is impact had always slid under the radar, only detected when the sound was amiss. Neither of them knew what to think of it. If they should warn the others, if they should warn each other. But they had no time to open their mouths to let a word out, before Shiro let out a sigh.

 

“I’ll say this much and no more.” Shiro’s voice was back to that that the four of them knew. Stern, serious, unwavering. “What we’re up against is a creature with no heart. A fairy born of darkness who never learned what the light was. I can’t tell you his story or when he was born but I can tell you that he’ll stop at nothing to fatally wound whoever dares to defy him.”

Pidge was about to open her mouth to pose more questions when Shiro regained his spot on the other side of Keith, gesturing to the vines that needed slicing. Keith held onto the handle of his sword, uncertain of what he should do for a moment. Lance couldn’t blame him. Shiro had once been someone who would tell Keith anything and everything he knew about the world around him. He would tell him stories of the outside, teach him why he couldn’t trust those on the inside. But with this, suspicion had wormed its way into Keith’s heart, giving into a doubt that had been growing ever since he’d gotten close to Lance. Were there always secrets that were worth hiding to keep someone from fearing? Was the truth always so hard to handle that there were things that Shiro would never tell him? Lance could read all of these questions in his eyes like a book, silently wishing that the oldest among them couldn’t read them, too.

“Then we’ll have to make sure we keep our guards up.” Was all that Keith said before he cut the final curtain of vines.

As they fell to the ground, the landscape that they’d been concealing was nothing like any one of them had ever seen. A beauty that Lance couldn’t quite put his finger on seemed to greet them at first, but that was only a mirage. The reality of this place was that there was a darkness to it that no other area of Maple Grove possessed. No other area of Pixie Hollow, for that matter. It made Lance wonder exactly how Matt had gotten here, when he spotted a creek running down the middle of the land. It was about the same width and depth as the one that the water talent had spent countless hours beside with Keith but the water here looked different. It wasn’t something you could spot right away, especially if you didn’t have the trained eye that Lance had. But the water that flowed inside of it flowed slower, like it were some sort of syrup. It almost looked darker from where they stood, though with the amount of shadows that the trees were casting, it was nearly impossible to tell if this was just a trick of the shadows.

“How did Matt not turn back from here?” Lance said, almost with a sense of awe. He turned to look at Pidge, who strayed slightly behind the rest of the group. “Why did he even think going out here was a good idea?”

Pidge looked down at the ground, holding onto the handle of her bow so hard that her knuckles turned white. “Another tinker talent tipped him off about it.” Then, with her voice dropped to an even softer tone. “He was always willing to do anything so that I would never run out of scraps to work with, no matter how dangerous it might’ve been.”

“Just remember that you’re not fighting alone.” Lance put a hand on her shoulder, Allura doing the same on the other side. Shiro and Keith offered her confirming nods. “You’ve got us to lean on.”

“And I couldn’t be more grateful.” Pidge mumbled it so much that it was almost impossible for Lance to understand what she had been trying to say.

Lance wanted to try to comfort her more but before he could, she was briefing them on what the plan was, directing them to take their positions. Keith and Lance would be Pidge’s direct backup, following her wherever Lotor decided to lead her. Allura and Shiro would take the high ground, hiding themselves behind trees to be their surprise soldiers. For someone seemingly so unorganized, the tinker talent could come up with a decent plan on the spot. It didn’t take them long to find their positions. Keith nodded at Lance with a grin, one that the water talent had given him in his times of weakness, to try and pass on a bit of his strength to him. Lance would be lying if he said that he wasn’t scared, but it wasn’t the biggest emotion he was feeling like then. All that he had on his mind then was the desire to save their home, to save themselves from having to hide their love away from the inside. Freedom, Lance thought.

What could possibly be better to fight for?

“Show yourself, Lotor!” Pidge had her bow wound back. It would only take a second for her to release it and less than a minute for the poison that she’d soaked the tips of her arrows in to enter his bloodstream. “Can you not own up to what you’ve done? Or are you just a coward?”

A ball of fire whizzed past the tinkerer’s head, millimeters away from setting her entire face ablaze. Keith had been the one to pull her back. His grip on her lingered long after the threat had passed, to make sure that she wouldn’t serve the same fate that her brother had. That was the last thing that she wanted. It was the last thing that any of them wanted. Tonight was the night that they were going to end the prejudice and discrimination. They would show all of Maple Grove that Keith and Shiro had the ability to be their sector’s saviors as opposed to its destructors. Lance watched the way that Keith whispered to her, telling her that everything was going to be fine. That they were there to have her back. Lance noticed how Pidge seemed to get fired up the longer that they talked, her thanking him and turning back to face the unknown. Lance smiled approvingly, taking some of the strength that he’d give Pidge for himself, remembering how willing Keith was to die for him.

Which only fueled Lance’s desire to make sure that not a single thing happened to their little team, traitor or not.

“I might not enjoy showing my face to the world,” A figure said, stepping out from the shadows of the trees. “But I’m no coward.”

Lance gasped at him. Keith and Shiro’s eyes widened, while Allura covered her mouth with her hands. All four of them were stunned by his appearance, which meant that what he was seeing had to look the same to them. It could’ve been a trick of the moonlight but this fairy looked nothing like any other that any of them had ever seen before. His skin was purple. A light purple, like he’d been dipped in a bath of dye and pulled out before it could sink entirely into his skin, but purple nonetheless. The whites of his eyes weren’t white. They were yellow, accentuating the darkness of his irises. It was almost impossible to make out their color at this time of night but Lance swore that they, too, were purple. Not the same shade as Keith, though. Lotor’s were slightly lighter. It was unsettling to Lance, how light he was. With how dark his heart was, it didn’t make even a bit of sense to the water talent.

“So we meet face to face.” Lotor laughed. Every single one was fowl. He was taunting them, with nothing more than the sound of his amusement. “Pidge, right?”

Lotor took a step closer to her. The grin on his face said everything that they expected about him. That he wasn’t going to back down, no matter what it meant when it came to their fates. Lance couldn’t compare the sheer invincibility he sensed when he looked at Lotor to anyone else he had ever know. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in him, which made him all the more terrifying. She stepped back, her hand still holding on tight to the arrow wedged between her fingertips. Lance had never seen her this afraid before. In fact, he couldn’t think of a single time that he had seen her scared of anything. She had always stood before them as if she could face anything that the world threw at her but in reality, she was as terrified as they were. She had been fighting all on her own for much too long. They all stood closer to her, trying to let some of their strength into her so that she could stand without trembling.

“Yes.” Pidge replied, the shaking in her hand faltering slightly. Her aim was almost perfectly centered at his heart. “And I’m not backing down without a fight.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if you did.” There was a knife in Lotor’s hand now. He was twirling around like it weighed nothing, like it would mean nothing to him if he shoved it in one of their chests right then and watched them bleed out right there before him. “So, which one of you is going to make the first move?”

They all looked at each other. Pidge’s arrow started shaking less the more breaths she took, leading the others to believe that she would take the first shot. Lance had pulled out his slingshot, fumbling around with the pouch that Pidge had given him to try and get a good piece to shoot. The tinker talent nudged him with her shoulder, glancing at his weapon and shaking her head. Lance could understand now what she wanted them to do. Try with an arrow to see how fast he could fly. How easy it was for him to dodge whatever they threw at him. With one of her eyes closed so she could see better, Pidge let go of the arrow, watching as Lotor took it in his hand and snapped it. Pidge’s eyes widened, following the splinters of wood down to the ground in horror. Lance tried to shove a piece of glass in his slingshot, only to jump at hearing Lotor’s sinister words once more.

“Thanks for the blade, by the way.” He nodded in Keith’s direction, whose eyes narrowed with pure hatred as Lance noticed the symbol on the handle. The very one that Shiro had made, just for the two of them. “My fire might be more powerful than any of your feeble attempts at attacks could ever be but this is an added bonus.”

“Give that back.” Keith growled, losing all of the softness that Lance was used to.

Lotor’s lips twisted into a grin. He looked Pidge dead in her eyes, seeming as if he was trying to look somewhat kinder so that she’d sympathize with him. “I never meant for your brother to die.” Pidge didn’t say a word, so Lotor went on. “I was trying to make a deal with him. The deal that I also tried to make with your comrade with the rather unfortunate looking hair.”

“Shiro?” The three of them at the front asked in unison, turning to the tree that he was hidden behind. The fairy didn’t so much as try to peek out from behind his hiding place.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Lotor clicked his tongue disappointedly. “And after I’d given him such a good offer too.”

Lance raised an eyebrow, noting the looks that Keith and Pidge aimed in his direction, both as completely lost as he was. “What offer?”

“I’m glad that you asked!” Lotor chuckled. Nobody laughed with him. “You all certainly are an uptight bunch, aren’t you?” He dropped the blade and extended his hand, as if to shake on a deal. “If you ally with me, no harm will come to you. Or to your precious Maple Grove. That’s not who I’m after.”

Pieces started clicking together like puzzle pieces in Lance’s head faster than he could keep up with the new information.

This fairy hadn’t been born around here. That was why there were no rumors or descriptions of him. No crude comments about what destruction he could bring about to their land. This fairy had been one who’d somehow managed to escape Pixie Hollow’s wrath, all those years ago. He’d retreated into these woods as a means of escape, knowing well how far away they were from the homeland, and how they would have no desire to chase him out this far just to kill him. Matt had been a casualty because he didn’t want to go against anyone. He refused to side with someone who had decades of rage boiling in his blood, waiting for just the fairies with the right combination of talent and naivety to join him on his quest for revenge. Fairies lifespans could last forever if they took well enough care of themselves, but it seemed that this grudge had preserved his body better than anything else could.

“You want to kill the queen, don’t you?” Lance asked, looking this monster dead in the eyes. “That’s why you need people to join your side, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t expecting the water talent to be the one to figure out my master plan.” Lotor said, clearly impressed. “Imagine just what we could do together, with all of your power and mine.”

Lance shook his head. “There’s no way that a single one of us would ever side with you.”

“I knew that you would say that.” Lotor snapped his fingers and in his hand, a ball of fire appeared. A mystifying shade of blue, one unlike any of the fireballs that Lance had seen Keith make, which burned with the brightest of oranges. “I guess that leaves me with no choice, then.”

“You’re not going to win against us.” Pidge was still shaking now, but there was something different about it. It was concentrated more in her face, close to her jaw. Lance realized that this was the rage she’d been waiting to unleash, out and ready to fight with all of its might. “It’s five against one. Even you should know that no matter how powerful your attacks may be, we have ways around that that you don’t possess.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Lotor said, before launching his fireball up into the tree that Allura had hidden herself behind.

For a moment, it seemed like nothing had happened. Aside from the ash that flew to the ground, the rest of the tree seemed to stay perfectly intact. That’s when the creaking began. It was quiet at first, almost sounding like the crackling of the flames, but soon enough Allura had yelped out in pain as a flaming branch fell down from the tree. Why she hadn’t seen it coming, none of them could understand, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t going to help her. Shiro flew to her aid while Lance, Keith, and Pidge dealt with the matter at hand. Lotor had moved closer to them, fireball in one hand, Keith’s blade in the other. Keith was the one to meet him on his level, trying to keep him at a distance as he thrust his blade down into his side. Lotor was too quick for it to do any damage. Instead he threw a fireball at Keith, who ducked just in time to send it into a bush, which practically turned to ash the moment the flame hit it.

Lance and Pidge tried to help as much as they could but they quickly developed a swordfight of their own. None of them had expected a single one of them to come even close to a match for Lotor. Including Keith. Combat was a lot different when you were in the middle of it. Way different than any of them had predicted. Your mind had to be able to keep up with your body, something that none of them believed themselves to be able to do. But while Lance watched their movements, two fairies with jagged wings practically inches away from mutilating their faces, he noticed how fluid Keith’s were. How natural it was for him to duck his head and get right back up, ready to take another chance to attempt to slice into Lotor. How the look in his eyes never wavered, a newfound determination that was unlike anything Lance had ever seen from any other fairy. Fighting seemed to be natural for him, like it was what he’d been born to do.

A precursor of war.

Lance had attempted to try and take some shots at Lotor, as did Pidge, but both of them gave up as they couldn’t quite keep up with the rhythm of their shots to time when they could hit Lotor but not Keith. Instead they noticed Shiro waving to them from a distance, flying over to him to see what the damage to Allura had been. Unsurprisingly, she’d managed to heal any wounds that she had, leaving only her slightly singed hair as proof that she had been caught in his flames. She waved off their concern, saying how she could always cut it later, but Lance knew just how far her magic could go. There were scars she was hiding somewhere, ones that were shrouded in the shadows, Allura too afraid to show them. Lance wasn’t in the mood to argue. He could hardly think of anything else but the danger they were in, how Keith was out there fighting with no mercy, how they might actually stand a chance if the rest of them could band together with Keith to take him down.

“Who’s gonna go out there and join him?” Allura asked out of concern, careful to keep her voice down quiet enough so that Lotor couldn’t hear. Though it must’ve been almost impossible to hear anything over their fighting, Lance thought.

“Not you.” Shiro replied as the garden talent tried to rise to her feet, pouting when he pushed her gently back down against the tree. “We need you in case Keith gets hurt out there, remember?”

“I can heal myself and then heal Keith just fine.” Allura grumbled. She didn’t show any signs of getting up and joining the two fairies out there, so the others ruled her out.

“I’d like to try.” Pidge said. The others instantly began to voice their protests and concern, only for her to put a hand up to stop them. “I’m not gonna hear anything from you. I’m the one who dragged you out here tonight and I’m gonna be the one to suffer the consequences, as fatal as they might be.”

Lance pulled on her arm, getting her to turn around to face him. There was an obvious fear in her eyes. A fear of how painful her death would be, a fear of not knowing where she would end up after her last breath, if there was anywhere for her to end up at all. “Wouldn’t Matt want you to stay alive?”

“Matt would want me to be happy.” Pidge said, breaking free of Lance’s grip. “Knowing that I was the one who landed the final blow that killed that vile creature would bring me nothing but endless joy.”

She left the three of them just like that, grabbing another arrow out of her bag.

Lance couldn’t bring himself to look no matter how much he wanted to. What he saw of either Keith and Pidge now wouldn’t be a fair final image to who they had been to Lance in his life. The memories that his mind wandered back to now were ones where he could remember the ways that they laughed. Pidge’s always sounded harsh, like she never truly found anything funny, while Keith’s sounded like it was always from his heart, no matter how quiet it fell. He laughed from his heart while Pidge laughed because she had to. The image of Pidge that Lance had built up in his mind had faced some distortion throughout the past few days. While she wasn’t a saint, he could understand where she had been coming from. Revenge could blind even the most understanding of souls, turning their vision into nothing more than a tunnel that led only to what they sought to destroy. It had been a pity that Pidge had succumbed to this, had thought that there would be nobody to understand her, but a part of Lance would grow to forgive her.

That was when he heard the clattering of metal on the ground.

“Pidge!” Keith called out in distress. 

Lance flew up from his spot without thinking, rushing out to see what had happened. It didn’t take long for him to pull out his slingshot, joining Keith by his side. The black haired boy had managed to grab both his knife and the sword that Pidge had loaned him, but not without letting Lotor take a hold of Pidge. One of his hands was wrapped around her neck, pressing her against the trunk of a tree. Lance looked to Keith for advice. He had no ideas rolling around in his head, shrugging frantically instead. This could only end in disaster, was all that Lance thought. With Pidge in his grasp, there wasn’t much that they could do. Even if they were able to land a blow on Lotor, he would just take his final moments to bring down Pidge with him. All they could do was stand on the sidelines, frozen in fear, and hope that Pidge had something up her sleeve to bring down Lotor herself. That she’d prepared enough to know the possibility of this happening, of her being unable to escape. But the pit in Lance’s stomach knew otherwise, knew that there wasn’t anything they could do.

Knew that this would be Pidge’s final night alive, whether he liked it or not.

“You miss your brother so badly?” Pidge struggled underneath Lotor’s grip, gasping for air. In his free hand he conjured a ball of flame, letting it swell until it was practically the size of her head. “Then why don’t you go and join him?”

With the warm glow of the fire, Lance could see that Pidge was beginning to cry. She was trying to pull her arm up and wipe her tears away, to show her brother’s killer that she was strong enough to withstand anything that he threw at her, but Lotor wouldn’t let her. He turned his grip on her neck into his elbow pressing into her trachea. Lance aimed his slingshot at him, putting a single piece of broken glass in it. The largest and sharpest one that Pidge had given him, the one that Lance had been saving for a moment just like this. Lotor craned his neck around to look at Lance. It made him drop the piece of glass on the ground, him cutting his hand on it as he picked it up. The silence in the air was unsettling but it was better than the song he’d heard before. Lance was ready to pull back, when Keith lounged at Lotor with his sword, making a clean cut through his arm as Pidge shoved something into his side.

Only Lotor was able to bring one of his killers down with him.

Everything felt like it happened all too fast yet in such agonizing detail that Lance could recall it vividly for years to come. Lotor flew off somewhere they couldn’t see while Keith caught Pidge’s mauled body in his arms. Lance flew over to help pick her up, but could only weep at what Lotor had turned her into. Her hair had been completely burnt away on the right side of her head, leaving nothing more than painful wounds where it once had covered her scalp. Her clothes had been burned onto her flesh, melding them into a combination of skin and leaf that looked like it would be impossible to separate. The two of them flew her over to Allura anyway, aware of every moan and groan that passed the tinker talent’s lips. Allura gasped as they placed her down on the ground in front of her, ready to place a hand on her chest.

Until Pidge swatted her hand away.

“It’s pointless, Allura.” Pidge somehow managed to smile through the burns, blood caking what was left of her lips. “There’s no home here for me.” She lifted her arm up, though it shook and caused her to whimper. “I belong up there.”

Allura was struggling to breathe through her tears. She decided that if she couldn’t heal Pidge, she would be there for her until the end. She looked up at the sky above them, that was now fully visible through the lack of leaves, as did the rest of them. The stars seemed to be lower in the sky, shining brighter than any of them had ever seen. One in particular caught their attention, positioned right about where Pidge was pointing. It had a hint of green to it, though it could’ve been a trick of the atmosphere. There was space next to it as if it were waiting for a friend, for someone to fill the gap and lessen the expanse of black between it and the next star. None of them could deny Pidge her final wish. They had saved Lotor like she’d wanted them to. Now there was nothing left for her to do in this world but wait until something decided to take her life, which would hurt her more than anything in the long run.

“Did you start seeing that star after Matt died?” Keith eased himself down next to Pidge, running his hand down her arm in a way that Lance had done for him before. 

“It’s the only one I’ve cared about since.” She chuckled slightly. Her neck turned every so slightly to face him head on, eyes brimming with tears. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“That one.” Keith pointed to one with a blueish color off in the distance, closer to the horizon. “I’ve wished on it for as long as I can remember.”

“Did any of your wishes ever come true?” Pidge was getting quieter, weaker. There wasn’t much left that she had to say.

“Every single one,” Keith wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, smearing blood all around them. “And some of them were thanks to you.”

“I’m glad.” Pidge was nearing her last breath. “That I didn’t live for nothing.”

“Your brother would be proud of you.” Lance was by Keith’s side now, holding him up so that he wouldn’t end up with his head on Pidge’s stomach. So that she wouldn’t have to leave this world knowing how much it hurt them to see her go. “I know it.”

Pidge shook her head. She shut her eyes, letting her tears fall down her cheeks. Like whatever she was remembering was too painful to look at them while thinking about. “He told me that he wanted me to live for him. I promised him that I would.” Lance pulled Keith in closer, whose sobbing was loud and violent. “But this promise is too important not to break.”

Her head fell limp at this and the damage had been done. 

In the distance, Lotor chuckled. Lance’s eyes shot up to meet his own, letting the pure hatred of this creature sink into his skin. He thought about all that Pidge had gone through. All the nights she’d cried herself to sleep, all the days she’d locked herself up in her room. They would never be allies for as long as he flew with his two, razor-like wings. He was clutching at the wound on his side, somehow still flying despite the bloodloss. Lance locked eyes with him as Lotor started to lose his balance, the flapping of his wings becoming slow, movements becoming irregular. He grinned as the purple skinned fairy realized what Pidge had done to him, cursing under his breath as he fell to the ground. The five of them would have smiled, if they all had made it. They would’ve let out cries of victory, held each other close in hugs of accomplishment, finally free to do whatever they pleased. War, however, took its victims without warning. It never gave you time to prepare yourself, to accept that someone you just loved yesterday wouldn’t be there to give you a smile the next morning.

So Lance took Pidge in his arms, leading the group back to where they no longer cared to go.

\----------------------------------

Pidge’s funeral was intimate, limited to only the four fairies who had witnessed her death firsthand. 

Coran had been the one to find just the place to bury her, insisting that it would be exactly where she’d be the happiest to rest. Allura, Shiro, Lance, and Keith accepted his invitation to take on that responsibility in the flap of their wings. It had been hard enough to watch her go, knowing that there was nothing more she felt the need to live for. It had been the hardest for Allura, no doubt. Lance caught her crying at the weight of Pidge’s headstone. How it was nothing more than a rock, one that would seem so insignificant to anyone who didn’t know what it was. She started crying more once she realized that there was another headstone right beside the grave that the tinkerer’s body laid underneath. A single piece of scrap, engraved with the name of the brother that Pidge had loved more than anyone else. The one who drove her to her grave while keeping her from it for so long. 

Allura had been tasked with all of the creative aspects of the funeral. A job she trudged through with all of her blood, sweat, and tears. Standing out here, in the biting cold wind of autumn, droplets rolled down her cheeks as if this were the first time she’d taken the time to mourn Pidge’s death. To accept that the fairy they loved and cherished, put up with all of her mood swings and troubles, would no longer be a part of their little group. That everything she ended up fighting for, she’d never get to see. Her eyes had shut long before the poison from the tip of the arrow that she had driven into his side had had any chance to take its effect on him. Lance watched Allura, his grip tightening on the bouquet she had given him. A day like this wouldn’t be easy to move on from. It would be one that crept into their memories at the most inconvenient of times, along with everything about that tinker talent that they had loved so dearly.

It took Lance being pulled into Keith’s arms for him to realize that he was crying, too.

“Pidge. The fairy with a body so small, who made the greatest sacrifice to keep Maple Grove safe.” Coran began, motioning for Allura to place the headstone at the top of the newly dug grave. “This sacrifice shall not go forgotten.”

With Keith’s support, Lance stepped closer to read the elegantly carved letters in the stone. Her handwriting had always been so beautiful, but the way it looked now was something else. The curves were softer, the lines more delicate, making it look like a relic rather than something to remember someone else by. Keith reached over Lance and wiped his tears away, holding him as tightly as he could. Lance wished that he didn’t have to be so emotional about this. That he could just hate Pidge for the hell she’d put them through and move on without a second thought. But there wasn’t just that to her. She had been a friend, someone that Lance looked forward to seeing. The image of her would always haunt him, no matter how much he wanted it to not. Friends or enemies didn’t matter. Lance had cared about Pidge and now that she was gone, his heart was paying the price. Allura took her place across from Lance on the other side of the grave, reciting the words without looking at them, as if they’d been burned into her memory ever since the day she was born. 

“A hero shrouded underneath a coat of black.” Allura’s voice was shaking, so she took a deep breath before finishing. “A beloved tinkerer, friend, and sister to Matt, who found her place among the stars.”

With that final word, every thought and question that Lance had been repressing burst through the dam he’d built up to keep them from overflowing. What were they going to tell Hunk? It would undoubtedly be suspicious to announce a death out of the blue like that. Fairies didn’t die often, unless they’d been around for a while, been injured, or fallen ill with something beyond their capabilities of curing. Would he believe them, or would he press them further for questions? Lance felt like Hunk could handle the truth, but had Pidge swayed him to her side? Did he believe that the dark fairies were still evil? Was this really the only way that Pidge could be happy? There had to have been something they could’ve done to keep her there. Something stronger than her desire for revenge, something along the lines of love. Could Allura really not have healed her, despite her not wanting her to? 

Lance sat the bouquet of flowers down that Allura had arranged especially for Pidge. Petals in dozens of shades of white and yellow, with leaves and clovers rounding out the mix. Green had always been her favorite color.

“You’re wrong.” Lance mumbled, words silenced by his sobs.

“What?” Allura placed her hand on his shoulder, while Keith leaned back a bit. Her touch made him lift his head, looking up and into her eyes. Blue and red only made such a wonderful color combination in every other instance than her irises and the puffiness that surrounded them. “What’s wrong?”

“Pidge wasn’t just Matt’s sister.” Lance said, audibly this time. “She was mine and yours just as much as his.”

“I know.” Allura whispered, blinking more tears from her eyes. “But we’ll see her in the stars, right?”

Lance nodded. There wasn’t anything that they had left to do at this point but say goodbye. They were free to do whatever they wanted, to be wherever they wanted, to fall in love with whoever they wanted, yet all that the water talented wanted to do right then was nothing. Keith helped him up off of the ground, brushing some hair that had stuck to his cheek with his tears back and behind his ear. Having Keith by his side would make the healing go by faster. He would be the one thing that would keep Lance from spiraling out of control, from doing things that he would’ve done in the past to deal with situations like this. Keith might’ve been a fighter, but there was more room in his heart for love than hate. He had fought that night so that they could spend every moment together without fearing death. So that they could be married sometime in the future, when all of this commotion had died down. Lance wished that he could thank him right then. But right now, all that he wanted to do was go back to his place and sleep.

So he bid them farewell, hoping tomorrow would be easier for him to handle.

\--------------------------

“I’m going to miss this place.” Keith admitted, holding onto the side of the doorway for support. 

He looked around the room, taking in as much of it as he could. The notebooks on the shelves, ones filled with both his and Lance’s handwriting from when he had taught him how to write. The crystal that sat near it, the one that Lance had brought especially for Keith, so that he could keep their deal. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be mementos of times when things were somehow easier. While they had to hide from the world, they were blissfully content in doing so. They didn’t care what they did or if they had to stay in the outside. It was their little world, a place that grew to be so much more when they were together than when Keith had been alone. Now that they were here to leave, Keith wasn’t so sure if he wanted to. Lance had already made himself comfortable in his bed, Keith rolling his eyes as he stood above him.

“Who says we have to say goodbye?” Lance pulled him down onto his bed. He was practically on top of him. The water talent didn’t seem to give it much notice, though. If anything, a smirk crossed his lips, one that Keith knew all too well. Suggestive, as always. “This is your home.”

“No.” Keith pointed to Lance’s chest. “You are.”

Lance’s cheeks flushed at this, pushing Keith down so that he was laying right in front of him. There were so many parts to his face that Keith loved to look at. His bright blue eyes, always full of life and wonder, no matter how boring whatever they were doing may have been. His thin arched eyebrows, which always moved along with his mouth when he talked to add more expression to every word. What Keith loved the most about Lance was how soft his skin was. Whenever he placed a kiss against it, it felt as if he were kissing water itself, smooth and cool. He’d learned more about the fairy in front of him in these past few months than anybody else had ever bothered to learn. He’d made memories with him that nobody else would ever get to make. Keith had only managed to steal one heart in his life, and he had no intention of breaking it.

He only wished to share it.

“Then what is this place?” Lance asked curiously, tilting his head to the side.

Keith couldn’t help but kiss him, letting Lance run his hand down his chest. “Our home.”

“We’re lucky aren’t we?” Lance turned to look up at the ceiling. “That everything worked out in the end?”

Keith had positioned himself so that he could lean his head on Lance’s chest, listening to his breathing and heartbeat. They were both so synchronized and slow that Keith could almost hear a new song form in his head. It wasn’t of the journey they’d been on, the secret that nature had cruelly not revealed itself entirely to Lance. It wasn’t of stories from long ago, ones that nobody would care for but the two of them. No, it was something more like a ballad. A love song that seemed to go on until the end of time, with nothing but gentleness and joy. Not a single note out of place, not a single word sad. It was endless, peaceful, bliss. The only melody to ever belong to any two fairies who were each able to hear the same thing. Keith wondered if Lance could hear it too, or if he was content with being oblivious.

“It wasn’t luck.” Keith’s hand found its way into Lance’s own, intertwining their fingers once more. “It was fate.”

“A summer’s lullaby.” Lance whispered, knowing now that the trouble was past. 

The two of them drifted to sleep, listening to nothing but the songs inside their hearts. 

The only songs that they would hear from then on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself that I wouldn't cry when I finished this but I was clearly lying to myself.
> 
> This is where A Summer's Lullaby ends. I wanted to thank everyone who has stuck around to see this ending, even if it wasn't what you were expecting. This honestly wasn't where I was expecting it to go, but I'm proud of this.
> 
> It meant the world to me to write this for you and to get this story out of my head. It started out as sort of a joke, and a bet, but in the end it just became a part of me. A part of me that I don't want to leave behind.
> 
> Thank you for all of your support, comments, and kudos. Every single one of them is appreciated.
> 
> A new fic will be coming your way soon. 
> 
> For now, go out and sing your own summer's lullaby and screw everyone who tells you to stop. <3


End file.
